Combines Combine Fires

I do like your logic on the fire thing. The only question I have is who do you call first the fire dept. or the insurance companyIJ Too many of my neighbors have water tanks and pumps on old 3 ton trucks. We have had the same fires on our 1680. I found if I keep the pto cooler clean I have had no problems.

Be sure your radiator is absolutely clean. You need all the airflow through the engine compartment to keep it clean and cool. The fact that the engine stays cool is not good enough. This is a lesson we learned the hard way. We saved the combine with the help of about a dozen neighbors, but burned 50 acres of barley. Not a good day. Hope this helps. SIGNED: BOB

Is it possible that a bearing is going out and small sparks or hot fragements landing on dust is causing the smoldering problemIJIJ

if you ride on the back deck by the motor you will know where the sparks come from. a lot of trash swirlls around that motor compartment. good air flow through the radiator helps. but i agree, let it burn!

have you checked the auger limit switch to see if that is stickingIJ the one in the grain tank sticks for us once in a while on our 1680 and will not let the auger swing out. when ever the wind blows from behind we get dust that accumulates on the deck and on the pto housing etc. we have been tempted to add some sheet metal like the newer combines to keep dust off the engine better... a clean radiator lets more air pass through the engine compartment.

In reference to combine fires we had soybean dust accumulate under rear side of grain tank. On windy days when we have a strong tail wind and I believe soybean dust embers from engine exaust manifold blow under grain tank where dust collects and starts to smolder. Fortunately I found out before it caught fire. last year it burned a hole in the Air cond lines and we lost all freon. Had to replace lines on rainy day.The year before we had similar wind conditions and soydust startedshiel to smolder in several areas on the side ledges and around chopper. We started dropping hot embers on ground and caught field on fire in several places. We were fortunate enough to be near buildings with a water hydrant to put out the smoldering soybean dust. We have a shield on the exaust manifold that the company said would prevent problem and it still occurs. We have not had a problem during corn harvesting.

had a r50 duetz motor, doing beans oct.02,checked gauges,saw no response from altenator, got out to check, altenator on fire, melted parts had ruptured large oil line.i had one extinguisher not enough i had phoned fire dept. 15 minutes later they got there,to late,lost back half of combine

I know what you mean. We had a combine fire for the first time ever. Almost lost our CTS II. We were almost finished with a field and I passed dad in the 8820 I was driving. I radioed him and said I smell smoke. I got out and couldn't find anything. So I kept on cutting and turned around at the corner. Dad was about 1_4 mile up the field and thats when I spotted white smoke coming from his combine. He saw the smoke about the same time and stopped the combine. He radioed for my uncle to bring the service truck that had some water jugs because the fire extinguisher didn't work. The whole back of the machine was smoldering. A fine dust had collected over the combine and started smoldering from static electicity. We had to called the fire department to put out the stubble fires. Fine dust combined with 100 degree heat was a huge problem this year. Almost everybody had a combine fire. It was so bad at times that farmers and custom cutters were shutting down in the middle of the day.

Once many years ago, I went home to eat lunch. When I came back to hop on the old machine and shell some corn I was horrified to find that a fire had started under the cornhead, which for some strange reason I had left up. It had burned about a 5' diameter circle under the left side just missing the front drive tire then went out on it's own. lucky that day.

Gleaner R-50 combine. The fire starts in the engine compartment behind the motor and it starts because the dust builds up and the dry air coming out of the engine dries the dust out and causes it to ignite. The solution for this is that the air cool engine is not good for dusty conditions but also the engine doesn't need to be inclosed as it is. Need some type of fan and vents to drawn the hot air out of the engine compartment to help keep it cool.