Combines How well do Axial Flows work on sidehillsIJ

Axials have some problem on sidehills in really heavy crops. It helps if they have sidehill dividers on the chaffer. A low right side seems to be worse than a low left, probably because the return comes in on the left.

They work better than conventional combines because they avoid the separation problems in the straw walkers. But they face the same problems as everyone else in the cleaning or shoe section of the combine. The shaking and gravity quickly put all the grain on the downhill side of the chaffer and then it starts to go out the back. Hillside dividers help, but it still happens. Go over to "topics:" and then "attachment" and check out the Hillco site. They have a place on their site where you can compute expected losses and their costs when operating on sloping land.

oops the return comes in on the right. sorry. caught that in the rereading this morning.

I have had good luck with this machine on side hills. Yes you do need the dividers on the sieve and the pan just above it, and not hte short ones either. I also run the left handed auger and two paddles on both sides. We run about 3.5 to 4 with an 8- row head in 200 B.U. corn. How ever the weaknes is the double drive belt on the right hand side that drives the elevator and the sieves. Also have to be careful on the downhill side as a jerky operation, even with the gate on the front of the lower sieve, will fill the fan and resultantly loose your air flow. Bad News as you know no air, no clean, and a problem that just compounds itself.