Combines New Gleaner Rotor

One of my customer_neighbors ran one of these rotors from AGCO last year when it was still in the supposed test phase and I helped him remove and install and evaluate it. He had also run Sunnybrook so it was a good comparison, and for our purposes and crops in ND, the AGCO rotor was, with all due respect, hands down better than the Sunnybrook. The smaller diameter of the AGCO rotor eliminated rotor rumbling (also give proper credit to the rotor knives for this, which break up bunches of crop and prevents the rumbling - this is how they can get away with running the bars in 6 rows as opposed to staggered). Those rotor knives are worth their weight in gold for improving performance in soybeans, wheat, edibles, barley, you name it. Secondly, what a huge improvement in corn!! The Sunnybrook had been tried in an attempt to reduce corn cob break-up that the original 8 bar rotor was pretty good at doing. The Sunnybrook didn't prove to be much better, but when he put the AGCO 6 bar in, whole cobs, like magic. The rotor knives did seem to help in the trashy corn to reduce loss, but in good standing corn when there's not problems separating through trash, I think the knives might contribute to some cob damage, what little there was. Don't get me wrong, I've seen the Sunnybrook do wonders in wheat and tough soybeans compared to the old 8 bar rotor, but the new AGCO 6 bar shined equally as well here and did far better in corn to boost capacity and reduce power requirements of the rotor. As far as power impulses, theoretically you are correct in that the Sunnybrook's staggered design would seem to smooth out power requirements. But when that rotor is spinning 400, 600, even 900 rpm, the straight bar design runs quite smooth, especially now with the rotor knives to break up wads. Given the choice, he (and I) will take the new 6 bar rotor. Three cheers to the engineers at AGCO for finally directing some much-needed attention to the heart of our beloved silver combine, and for doing a great job!!

I think that to run smoothly, it will have to run faster - that leads to fines in corn and cracked soybeans - what did you see in grain qualityIJ I get outstanding corn and bean samples with the Sunny. I hope it is as good as you say. Thanks for your comments, as experience tells the story.

Remember RamRod that you have some other contributing factors in your setup to help the Sunnybrook shine for you. I believe you have steep pitch helicals, cage material seperator grate in place of cross bar design, and all forward cylinder bars. Also keep in mind that many operators have removed half the cylinder bars across complete rotor to reduce cob breakup while still working well in other crops. I have some reports of the new CDF rotor with knifes in 25" proto version working very well in the winter wheat down south. We'll so how the 24" works when they work there way north toward the hard threshing spring wheat. Maybe Harvester can verify if that was included in the tests. All I can say is way to go to whoever it is at Gleaner that was able to get these changes done. The great capacity built into the Gleaner design is now starting to be realized even in the toughest of conditions. Thanks to all you guys that have been pushing Gleaner to get er done.

Dan, is it the 24 inch rotor that one would get if you option for that from GleanerIJ The rotor knives talked about; are they Gleaner's partsIJ Thanks for the info!

My understanding is that John Keller was a leading force in some of these last big changes. It might also be noted that a lot of design changes and ideas for modifications have come from people like him and Jerry Thurman. These combine gurus and others with Gleaner have contributed a lot of information over the years that other people have stood up and taken credit for. VSTK

I would be 99% sure that the CDF offered now is 24" and will likely come standard in the corn soybean machines after a season!!! If the 24" has any short comings in the numerous other crops these things have to work in I would make a guess that there will be a CDF in a 25" version. The rotor knifes were borrowed from the MF rotor. Don't know when they started using such a thing. Have a good day.

I heard the same about John being the driving force in getting this rotor out. John, Jerry, and Jim in Gleaner service are mountains of most valuable information. Gleaner has another great set of guys on the Techvan with an outstanding amount of knowledge. Actually Gleaner is loaded with great minds in many divisions. Trick has been to get everyone on the same level so they can work together to finish up a wonderful design. Gleaner has put some programs in place to get this done. Anyway hats off to all Gleaner employees, dealerships, private shops, and farmers that have cared to contribute to making a better Gleaner. Go Gleaner Go.

Did he have any helical mods done with these rotors or was it the original setupIJ Do you need fast pithced helicals with thes new rotorsIJ

Original helicals. With the corn we grow in this part of the country, we've never had much luck with the fast-pitch helicals; we simply need more time to separate. The smaller diameter rotor really seems to have freed up a lot of horsepower that was wasted with the 25" rotor, while the original helicals give enough time for separation. I do think the fast helicals could have improved the rotor's performance in edibles, but it was such an improvement over the standard rotor that we didn't think we needed to go to the work to switch out the helicals. What I might still like to see, for those of us in edible bean country anyway, is a part of the cage that could be easily removed (more easily than bolts) to give access to most of the rotor so that rotor mods could be done in the combine. Specifically I'm thinking of the rotor sweeps from the Hurtt boys that work very well in edibles that could be put in for those crops and removed for our corn, which requires more separation time. Nonetheless, it is still a major improvement.

I am all for an easy access door to get at the rotor to change bars and the knives and such.