Combines mods

[Rolf]

G'Day dirtclod I have a 94 R62 and we only harvest small grain with this machine, (wheat,barley,lentils ect!!) and as I am not as familiar with the N7 series I think the principles would remain the same for both! If you can I would defiantly go with Channel helicals through the WHOlE machine and you would need to ask one of the Gurus as to the specifics of were to put them. I would at least try no reverse bars first as its fairly easy to put a couple of reverse bars back in if REAllY needed!!! I find that its much better to get everything flowing through the machine quickly and smoothly first then we can find things to help with separation. One thing we are trying this year is to shim out our separator rasp bars very close to the cage!! (rasp bars miss the helicals by 5 or 6 mm) I hope to shim out the whole rotor next season so its the same diameter as the separator end. I think the Gleaner machines were originally designed to harvest Corn very efficiently so they tend to have a large rotor to cage gap to roll corn cobs through but for us small grain guy's (hmmm! no smart comments you lot!!!!) the gap is in my opinion a bit to large to help with separation in small grains. I would also try the pegs that fit through the cage to help rip open the mat of material to let grain out through the cage. Put the pegs in at the front of the separator section you will need to access it through the grain box. Ask some more questions to get some of the other guy's to comment. Have fun Rolf PS: We hope to start our harvest some time this week!! R.O.M. has been working on our super duper wirly blowy thingy on front of our 62 so as to help get these lentil thingy's in, it has a air duct as well as our lentil reel!!! looks like one of those beetles that your wife would empty the bug spray can on!!!!!

 

[NDDan]

Got second snow today and it might stay for awhile this time. Allready had a taste of -10F. Had to venture out and hang some Christmas lights today. I think I would head out and find a slightly newer N in salvage with newer style hydro filter assembly. We made up 1_4"X1" shims to stick between helical and cage. We cut to match helical best as posible. We install under all the helicals. Others have used another set of helicals which are 3_8" to shim thresher side helicals and some have also did complete set. We also installed green stem kit when doing this. That kit includes another row of helicals for thresher side as well as three helicals that line up the steeper pitch thresher helicals to the shallower pitch seperator helcals. Another option to basically duplicate standard pitch helicals with green stem kit installed is the loewen dual pitch channel kit. That kit in black iron will cost you about the same as shiming and green stem kit. If you should ever want to slow the positive flow you could leave out some of the shimmed bottom helicals on seperator side or cut out a section of channel helicals if you went that route. Gleaner has the so called bean or green sunflower kit which is chromed channel iron helicals that run same pitch all the way threw machine with no helicals on belly of seperator side. The first and maybe second helical from gearbox in the Gleaner kit drops straw back over feeder which I like to stay away from. One could always tweak that first helical like we do on later machines with a piece of steep pitch helical. Any of these helical tricks will be much better than what you have and you'll surely appreciate in sunflowers especially if the plants are wet. There are a variety of ways to control loss if you have a problem. Your hard to thresh variety has to be or should be taken care of at concave. Stock setup for reverse bars is only two on seperator side on the P1s. We don't run any. I have heard of guys installing reverse bar or bars over concave and that just may help do a little more threshing at concave but I would rather run closer clearance with necesary filler bars. Channel helical bars seem to hold flow best of anything and the machines with bean kit work wonderfully. I don't think you would have any problem with a high low bar setup but that is mainly for the corn guys. I don't find any of your questions dumb. I believe that a draper head will help you out plenty in the right conditons. We have the old auger heads working just fine. We have a channel iron fastened under auger just ahead of front stripper bar on many heads to prevent straw from flowing over the top. We have 4" flighting extended to and intersecting a center line of finger area to get the straw into feeder on these hyped up machines so they can handle all the extra flow. Other wise the massive amount of straw will built in front of finger and fail to cut it off leaving a strip. This hasn't been a problem on the newer heads with 7" flighting. We have very few drapers around hear for the flex head with 7" flighting works so well and we need to cut beans on the ground as well as plenty of standing crops. I don't think the length of rotor has limited the potential capacity yet. I know there are some guys out there that have pumped HP plenty beyond 330 and doing very well. You can extend some cylinder bars into discharge along with helical to use more of that area as well as there is more room for perforated cage above feeder area with slanted floor to guide crop down to distribution augers. One just can't compare the length of other rotors to Gleaners for the systems of vary to much. I like to think Gleaner has a better way of GETN ER DONE. Not that there isn't still work to do. I think a larger diameter would work just fine but that would require some changes in gear box also to get tip speed down in the tender crops. I sure hope AGCO is working on the Gleaner design as much as the Massey. I don't know what to say about combine size by classes. If a 270 HP stock N7,R7,R70,R72 as well as the 300 and 330HP R72,75 are all class 7. I'm sure as far as capacity in many conditions we have bumped all these machines up at least a class or two without touching the HP. It's called hyperizing. Now it time for me to say sorry so long. Have a great day.

 

[ahbecalm]

Which model MasseyIJ Conventional or rotoryIJ What yearIJ I stopped in Willmar to talk to Rod about Gleaner and Massey. We rotate material 1 1_2 times the new 8970 rotary rotates material 10-12 revolutions, 3-4 in the thresh area, 7-8 times in the seperator. He demoed in soft cobs this year dischaging whole cobs. He runs 1 1_2" concave clearance. With a 15' rotor they use grain on grain, we use grain on steel with 7_8"-1" concave clearance. Their rotor bars last 3-4 times as long too. Since you've seen a Massey does a better job than your Gleaner, take a look at how. I've run Gleaners 36 years. After talking to Rod I'm thinking their might be a better combine now. (willmarfarmcenter.com)

 

[dirtclod]

Dad still runs a 78, 750 massey It is about as good as any combine I have run at saving wheat. The reason I got a N7 was that it will cut about twice as much as the 750. At that speed the 7 always left a green trail ,although loss was well under a bu_acre. This year I put in a air chaffer. It threw out even more intill I turned down the air to about 5 1_2 then was about comparable to the massey in loss. I talked to a gleaner mechanic and he saod that was all wrong because it would cut down on cleaning under rolls. Maybe I will hate the air chaffer next year but it helped this year. I didn't want to do any mods that would make loss worse. Thanks for reply

 

[NDDan]

Was it blowing out the seeds when turned upIJ (bad accerator rolls)Was it chaffing it outIJ (overloaded left side from poor helical setup) You were still likely getting good precleaning under accelerator rolls with the reduced wind. Take care

 

[NDDan]

Don't know how the Masseys do it or did it but have looked at wear patterns on some of the other rotors. Keeping in mind all the crops we jump back and forth from without switching concaves ect. ect. I think the Gleaner plan is oh so workable. Did a little studying on amount of turns crop makes in the Gleaner rotor with various helical setups. If the crop followed helical completely with no slipage: Small P3 R40 threw R55 with standard set of helicals and starting at front of concave I get from 2 to 3 turns. Small P3 with helical tricks we talk about 2 consistant turns. large P3 R60 threw R75 with standard set of helicals I get 3 to 4 turns. large P3 with helical tricks recently talked about I get 3 consistant turns. large P3 with steep pitch thresher side only I get 2 to 3 turns. large P3 with steep pitch all the way threw I get consistant 2 turns. Each turn in rotor is a strong 6 Feet. If cob breakage is causing junk in sample and you can't adjust cylinder speed or concave gap to correct you can install the newer high wire concaves, or tweek helicals as talked about, or remove some cylinder bars, or install some half height bars, or install some rotor sweeps. Don't know what guys have did wrong but I've heard of plenty of other very long rotors shuveling lots or good crop out end of rotor not to mention the shoe. Sounds like you havn't got your Gleaner where you want it yet but maybe you can get it there with a little more help. Have a good one.

 

[ahbecalm]

I called Siscoe, he refered me to Randy Pigg, the Gleaner dealer in Sulivan Indiana. With the rotor bars I have using the recomended 10 on the concave clearance scale is too wide. I measured 1 1_16" at 10, Randy recomends 3_4" and a slower rotor speed. His concave 0 point is 0" top, 1_2" bottom. I caused my own problems. Wish I had known all that 6 years ago when I put 'em in. Now my brothers want to scrap the high performance bars to put in standard corn bars. To fully utilize the potential of the high performance bars I'd need the 7 1_4" rolls or the lowen Posi Feed Rolls (at $595 each). My nearest parts man is researching which parts I need to put a Gleaner 7 1_4" roll from an R52 in an R50. In lieu of switching our low wire concave to a high wire (which Randy also recomends) and the associated high price, we'll look at stacking the remaining wires. I can cut the wires I removed to length then weld in place. Also lots of carriage bolts and whiz nuts to close all those little round holes. If you want to discuss the potential of Gleaners (less grain damage, less engine load more bushels per hour.) a call to Randy would be very interesting (812-268-4387)

 

[NDDan]

When rear of concave is basically zero clearance to cylinder bars it should read zero. When gauge on side is labeled 0 threw 12 that is 0_16" to 12_16" at rear of concave. You should of been very near 5_8" at rear with gauge reading 10 if zeroed proper. Did you measure the 1 1_16" at front while at 10 for that is very close to what you would have while at MID positionIJ Nothing wrong with 7" tention drum or drums but what was the problem or have you installed feeder drum shocksIJ Stacking the wires in thresher concave may be a little overkill for they will be almost flush with crossbars. You might think about welding a bead onto existing wires to raise there height a bit. High wire concaves have wire 1_4" down from crossbars and old low wire are 3_8" down. I do stack cut old wires onto existing wires in seperator grate for our variety of crops. I am concentrating less on smoothening off the seperator grate as we are running more rotor sweeps. All new machines are ordered with the high wide wire seperator grates. How about you share what you learned from Randy. I may have to give him a call also to see if were all on the same page. Thanks

 

[ahbecalm]

Thanks Dan for pointing out the sidewall scale indicates gap at top of concave. Yes I measured 1 1_16" at bottom near hinge. Randy initially sets clearance to 0" top then 1_2" bottom. For corn he recommends 3_4". Which means I should have been using 12, not 10 as recommended in the book. Keep in mind this is with every other rasp removed from small grain rasp bars, resulting in a 7_8" - 1" rasp spacing. He also recomends the high wire concave in coarse grains such as corn and soy, and slower rotor speeds than book. He's a busy man so I didn't ask a lot of questions. I did not ask if they're running 50s or 52s, nor whether they're using 8" or 7 1_4" drums.This year with sticky husks my Manchester feeder chains couldn't feed enough corn to the rotor. I was running the slow feeder chain sheaves and standard drums. Past experience is, in dry conditions high speed Manchester chains tend to bat cobs away rather than grab them. I even relocated the upper stops 1" higher. The lower chain stopped when I went faster. The last day we ran the fodder was dry, I ran twice as fast as the previous day which was foggy. With fog I ran 650-700 bu_hr., with dry fodder I ran 1300-1400 bu_hr. The corn was immature and tough shelling this year.It would be interesting to ask Randy what throughput his other customers are seeing with various size machines. Yes I have NAPA shocks on the lower feeder tensioner, Monroe shocks on the upper tensioner. The top of the lower tensioner arms were polished smooth, the upper tensioners had dust on the top side. The next time we have the rotor out I'll be sure to measure how far down the wires are, then make sure I leave 1_4" - 3_8" dip. Either Don Siscoe or Randy mentioned removing the wear strip to reduce grain damage. Gleaners also harvest pop corn there. My parts man found out the 7 1_4" drum as a seperate item has been discontinued. The new numbers are for replacement kits at $651 for one kit, $738 for the other. I would assume both upper and lower are the same. If lowoen will build a PosiFeed for $595 to fit an R50 all I have to do is wait for my brothers to see the light. I can run 30% more bushels per hour than a standard R50 with 3_4" corn bars when it'll feed which requires dry leaves and husks. Which my oldest brother is quick to call a fair weather machine. He'd rather go back to an out of the box stock setup. (Or a Deere) Don also mentioned his customers have the dealer install the modified bars. After they run a few acres they ask the dealer if he increased the horsepower. Don said his customers get premiums and awards for higher quality grain. Don rebuilt my concave with carbide, then grinds to true circle with square edges. His bars and concaves typically go 10,000 acres before needing attention. If the rasp bars he gets for rebuild aren't worn enough he'll grind 'em down so the carbide is thick enough when done. I think Randy will be more talkative with a fellow dealer interested in maximizing Gleaner's potential. My feeling is an R62 with Siscoe's bars and a 425 hopper will out perform a stock R72.

 

[NDDan]

I seen Manchester offers straight and knotched slats. Maybe even half and half. I imagine you have the fully knotched. Some guys run chains on high for corn also especially with the older machines before the higher speed feeders. You need to be careful not to allow rear feed chain to go to high also for it can lose control of crop which will cause front feed to plug quickly. Maybe never bother in corn and beans though. No we have no popcorn around hear but have seen the Gleaner recommendations on that tender crop. I believe loads of popcorn are rejected with nearly zero damage. If you study the concave clearance chart in service manual you will see the wear strip is closer to concave than the front bar of concave if all set by the book and have it set any larger than 5 and front grate droped down from MID. That could give you potential for unnecesary seed damage. I'm sure the new P_N for tention drums has the W shaped wear rings installed. I never tried but I would imagine the R52 drums would fit the R50. Bearing mounts would only be in further and you may need the larger OD bearings and flanges. Haven't run the posi-feed in corn but did run in wheat and beans. We had 7" posifeeds installed in rear position on two machines and I would have to say they did help. I surely see how the wider rasp has its benifits especially over the original old 1_2" rasps. I modified a complete large P3 rotor one time to 1.5" between rasps. I did that for edible beans and installed it into a cage with twice the normal helicals and all steep pitch. I also had blanks over concaves and smoothened out seperator grate. This was all in an effort to see what it takes to flow that tough straw that don't want to slide at times. All this with dreary results thus the rotor sweeps and the way we went. Anyway keep up the good work and your brothers may be looking for a Gleaner also. Good luck