Dan
Guest
If my memory serves me right them covers were introduced to prevent cage sweep pluging in spring wheat. You needed to have as many installed as you needed to prevent plugage in that area. You for sure needed far right and one on each side of center support installed. Plugage could still happen with all covers in place and not nesessarily only in the area where them covers are. Some have a short cage sweep arm in place of long one over the cover area and some have belt fastened to end of cage sweep arm to keep beating the center support area to prevent build up. We have completely removed cage sweep on most machines thus we remove all cover plates over cage except maybe the ones on both side of center support. If you would make up a panal to extend center support up and around cage a bit you could leave all plates off for the straw could not built up there. You may want to built a piece of tin to slant over concave adjusting eyebolt also to prevent straw from building up. One would have to be sure to monitor cage area close to see if any other area is building up on you. If you find any other area building on you you will maybe need to fill in that area or get rid of what is hanging up the straw. The very top cage section on seperator side may fill up with wheat straw and seeds but it don't cause us any problem. Crop loose sensor pad may need to be relocated around the corner if top section sits with a puddle of straw and chaff. The newer machines that have the for aft cage sweep have been no problem other than a little maintance and they are still in all them machines. Removing the cage sweep and covers sure opens things up in there and gets rid of another drive. About the last ten years of machines had no cage sweep but they added room around the cage and increased the slope of the side walls. The newer machines also got rid of the removable top cage doors on top of cage thus preventing any material from sitting on top of cage. I hope that all makes sense to you. Good luck and have a good harvest.