tbran
Guest
OK, as the crop enters the cylinder it is fed as a block of material into the spinning cylinder bars. (Not to be confused with nudie bars or karioke bars) The bars contact the crop and the beating action dislodges the grain from the encapsulating holding material it grew in. Some grain readily come free upon initial contact, other heads must be repeatedly struck to dislodge. (pretty simple so far huhIJ) The cylinder action moves the crop into the grate area where the threshed grains by gravity and from force of the cylinder fall and are driven through the grate openings. The longer material other than grain (mog) is conveyed on farther back across the cancave bars where, in Gleaner design, the clearance narrows and the remaining unthreshed grains now come under more intense threshing action and are removed or told to get out and never come back. (I made that up, you won't find that in the engineering manual) The wide then narrowing area assures complete theshing OVER THE GRATE - 99% - and allows the easy to thresh grain to be hulled with the greatest clearance, thus the gentle giants are easy on grain. Since a lot of the volume goes through the grate early the mog mass is less as it reaches the end of the grate. The grate is designed with a 7_16th wider spacing in the front than at the top or rear of the grate. This is why it is important and we preach CHECK AND lEVEl THE GRATE EACH SEASON! Zero the cyl by setting with the lever on the outside so as the highest cyl bar rubs the upper grate. Now obtain a 7_16" (you furnish the mms downunder guys) front gap by adjusting the large adjusting bolts under the grate bottom. The grate bars are 2" thick so 2-7_16" from the outside of the grate to the cyl bar yields the proper measurement. Now set the little gauges at 'mid'. The material always is forced to the left of the grate and thus there is more load on the lH side, thusly this is the side that wears more and gets wider. Use the long rods on the top to level the grate side to side at the top. IF a condition is allowed to get so as the grate is 1_4" wider on the left it will force radically the majority of grain and mog to the left grate side and form a rope that takes exponetially more horsepower to pull the now roped material through. This may be GRATING on your nerves by now butt... The grate may be fine tuned for wheat and soybeans by taking the front of the grate up a couple of marks toward 'min' to help threshing a bit. One can also add concave filler strips in to block off the opening thus adding even more threshing ability. (We usually run one in the front opening but recent trials have yielded equal or better results in the second or even third slot.) For corn move it a couple of marks down toward 'max' especially as the corn dries. Bottom line - for great performance do all the threshing over the grate, the rest of the cage is for separation.