Combines Combine Report

K.A. , It looks like your combines are almost trouble free also. You have a lot of acres per combine. How much fuel do your combine's use per acre and per hour on avg.IJ What do you est. is your total cost per acre per year to run and own your combinesIJ I look at my cost of about $11 per acre per year and it is not one of most expenceive cost I have with seed corn that cost $30 per acre, chemicals at $20 per acre, fertilizer at $25+ per acre and crop ins. at $10 per acre and not to forget land taxes at $10+ per acre. Running combines that work and you don't have to work on all the time is a joy, is in itIJ Ilnewholland

Ilnewholland, My fuel use is 8.5 to 9.5 gallons per hour and .85 to 1.15 gallons per acre. This summer when we were cutting wheat here in Central Kansas, the first three or four days of harvest we had really muddy conditons and we were cutting 50 to 65 bpa wheat. Then we used just over a gallon per acre. From here we moved up to South Dakota where we cut on rock hard dry ground and 20 to 30 bpa wheat. There we used .85 gallons per acre. K.A.

The problems you listed are just a normal part of owning the machine. We always carry a spare hyd belt idler with us partly because replacing the bearing requires the use of a press. As far as the fan thrust bearing goes, yeah they go out fairly regularly. Thank goodness they are easy to replace. One thing we found out the hard way about the thrust bearing is you can buy either a greased or an ungreased thrust bearing. We were buying the ungreased ones, not knowing they needed to be lubed before installation, making their lifetime pretty short. The hyd idler and the fan thrust brng are two things to glance at when you are serviceing the machine in the morning.