Combines Mod Questions

[minorfarmer]

I have thought the same thing all along. We get a little rotor loss, very little, but wouldn't want to get anymore just to gain a little more speed. I can see how it would get crop through easier with less power and be better for green stemmed beans but looks like more rotor loss in that situation also. Just wondering if I'm out of line or some rotor loss is added with the mods.

 

[Dan]

I agree it has taken to long to fine tune some of the new designs. Think if they would of stacked helicals or used channel iron helicals within year or two of P1 introduction. Or extended cylinder bars within year or two after introduction of the large P3s. One thing about not curing some flow character problems right away is that things were beefed up big time to prevent breakage while original strength was fine if flow problem was corrected. Reliablility and control of crop loss seams to be number one with Gleaner and other fine tuning has been coming at record rates the last few years. Think of what the 700 and 800 heads with HCC steggered finger reels and available cutterbar humps have did. Or feeder shocks or hi-wide wire rear section of concave, which both have been standard for 4 or 5 years. Hi-wide wire seperator grate now available factory installed and extended cylinder bars are now standard. Take away any of the changing that Gleaner has been doing except for extended cylinder bars and feeder shocks and compare with any other color year for year in a large variety of crops and conditions and I bet you find Gleaner at a very little disadvantage to a very large advantage. There thats my $.02 US on your first comments. I would realy wonder how your machine would of went without rock sump. I feel that sump could of been tumbling cobs which would of been presenting cylinder with a terible feed. You would like as many cobs as possible to be rolling into cylinder from feed chain not bouncing in. If you think speedo is slow you should clock it to check it and then program speedo accordingly plus or minus some from whatever is recommended for your tires. Did you extend upper most helical to approx. four inches from bearing plate and next one forward about eight inches from bearing plateIJ I'm sure there is some advantage to extending helicals without extending four cylinder bars accross discharge area but I think it would be somewhat limited. I would not extend more than four cylinder bars across discharge area for fear of tring to force crop into discharge plate. I know that before extending cylinder bars to discharge that helicals were not enough by themselves to keep crop flowing in all conditions. I think you should follow half height or remove cylinder bar suggestions for I know that will dramatically reduce the broken cobs. I have little experience with half height bars with so little corn around but I do know we had no problem in 80 bu. wheat with 8 half height bars installed in seperator side. Did you plug exposed holes in seperator grate after removing wires for I know in some crops the exposed holes can cause pluging while under operation and then be clean when machine is allowed to empty out. I don't think that removing wires from seperator grate will break any more cobs than with all wires in. I think hi-wide wire seperator grate will help to prevent broken cobs but doubt it will save any more corn than seperator grate with every other wire removed. Third helical extention is a must and will dramatically reduce amount of material coming around and getting back into feeder and rock sump door area and over concave again. I have installed 68" pitch helicals to thresher side only and all the way threw and shimed them all by 1_8" with a couple extra helicals but never get into wet 200 bu. corn. We are in an area with a wide variety of crops with very little hot harvest but usually damp harvest so we have tried alot of things and the main thing we have to do to new machines is install third helical extention and remove reverse bars.

 

[Dan]

Gleaner provides a nice dyno spec sheet for all the different combines and should be filled out properly to see if you have a power problem. It includes torque rise info. Dyno test for torque and then figure the HP from there. That will make things make more sense. A real mild torque rise will meet specs on the mechanical gov systems for they will peak at a certain HP and hold or slightly increase over a couple two or three hundred RPM from rated. The fine tuned pump will give you that torque rise in much less RPM drop which will also increase HP some. I tried to get a couple of my local full Cummins dealers to pull a pump for a guy that was complaining of HP problem and they said they would have to just exchange pumps. That machine was not sold by us and they did not bring in to dyno it so that is why I was after Cummins to see how they would approach it. An exchange pump may end up with just what you have so if you can have it removed and reset to get torque rise sooner without voiding warrentee that would be the way to go. I get a kick out of some manufactures that brag about high torque rise but they don't tell you that they calculated it over several hundred RPM and who cares what the torque rise is over that much RPM for what you want is an engine that will give it to you within a short working range. I have never seen any plugging of concaves when you use the high-wide wire or have every other wire removed from low-narrow wire but the reason you see the plugging is from that third helical dropping a very heavy load of material just ahead of there. What do you mean about switching concaves between cropsIJ I hope you mean you are adjusting them not changing them. I think you would do just fine with hi-wide front and rear section of thresher concaves as long as you use bottom mount filler bars.

 

[Dan]

I don't remember what machine you have but you can expect alot more speed in some conditions. I know there has been some questions on rotor loss but could a stock machine or any other machine do better in the conditions that machine was in. I know of one machine having some trouble and no matter how much he retarded the flow with reverse bars or seperator grate clearance nothing helped much untill he installed some fingers threw cage to rip open mat of material to let crop come out.

 

[Dan]

Did that weld short pieces of removed wires to top of separator grate wires. I have every other wire removed and have run in many crops including corn with no problem but have not got any wet 200 bu. stuff. I plan on welding wire on top of wire in rear half of thresher concave also sometime for I think we can get even more out of these machines if we don't overthresh the straw. We got by just fine with the short concaves in the P1s and maybe we can in the P3s as well. Again we have no wet 200 bu. corn. I heard they got it right at this years Farm Progress for Gleaner run right with the rest with no problem and had as little or less in one square foot behind our narrow discharge shute as others did with a very wide discharge area.

 

[Dan]

Wow you had 6 reverse bars in a 52, could you even move. Yes you moved the right direction for all your crops so give it a try.