Combines F 3 Transverse Fan

Had a neighbor who ran l3's many years ago that had a problem a time or two with his fan disintegrating for no apparent reason. luckily we've not had any first-hand experience with this though!

The blade holders or spiders are loctited to the shaft,one probably let loose and the fan is history.Need to check the fan once in awhile to make sure everything is square.Mechanic once told me to always shut the clutch down at full speed,cause slowing it down put stess on the fan.

Spiders, blade holders, guides whatever you call them were welded to the shaft!

Had the exact same thing happen to my F2 about 6-8 years ago. Never did know why. Ain't it amazing how many pieces that thing can make out of itself.

Had 2 M's they were both loctited,figured F's were too,shows how much I know.

Big Orange, You are right,all spiders or head asy's. are loctited,not welded to shaft. I have seen the spider come loose and twist on the shaft,also have seen where the fan blades crack where they are held in place with the snap ring on each spider(There is a small notch for the snap ring to set in.).This is a standard pre-season check in our shop.Check all head asy's. as they can crack at any one of them.Normally when seperator is engaged the fan shaft will flex which causes blades to fatigue crack.We have replaced many blades in chasis by aquiring enough vise-grips to hold snap rings away from blade while it is removed and replaced.(Make a small arched hole in RH bearing plate that can be covered.)I can't remember the exact year but AGCO hired a plant manager away from Harley Davidson and that was one of the first problems he addressed when he took over.There where hundreds of new combines sitting outside the plant with no cleaning fan and they where not putting one in until the engineers came up with a better design.Hence,the new aluminum head asy. that bolted to a larger shaft. I haven't seen that new design fail yet. Sorry for being long winded but some things need clarification, Hyper Harvest II

I welded them on some time ago but forgot until I looked it up on maintance book. Says I did it in 94'. Also replaced about 15 blades. I recovered the snap rings but one was mangled. At first I thought that was the cause but the blades on that location were fine. Oh well, I guess some things are better off not known. Doesn't matter I got all the parts this afternoon, well pleased with the service of the dealer even though he is not my neighorhood dealer. Two hour drive one way, $850 parts and raining when I got home. Guess I shouldn't work on Sundays after all. Mark one up for the guy upstairs!

Funny you guys should mention this, on one of our Gleaner F's (F's have two fans)just broke the front fan, quickly shut it off and found the plywood slated boards on the sieves! It was at the end of a round doing dry beans. Never experienced this yet, but there's a first time for everything. Two boards broke and two are in there yet, running it this way until it rains, no noticable difference in sample. looks like a little job to get it out of there and fix it, I know taking the rest of the bolts out of the plywood pieces that left was a little job. Soundsl like I better check the F2!!!! ;-)

If you ever have to replace the fan bearings and use the gas to heat them or cut the bearings off, you have a good chance of the heat breaking the loctite joint between shaft and spider. Scratch one fan!

Had same thing happen several years ago on N6. Combining fine until we went in to a steep waterway and totally shattered. All we found was a 5_16" bolt laying in the bottom of the fan housing. That is the only cause we could think of.