Combines PERFORMANCE UPGRADES

[John]

Our 91' R70 with 25' 500 Flex header doesn't seem to me like it wants to do very well in soybeans, though granted 2 of the last 3 years the stalks have been a tad wet. We've tinkered with a few things to make it run through easier (concave_cylinder clearence) but it don't seem to help. Any suggestions on what to look for or to changeIJ

 

[tbran]

Yeah, Hyper has some real neat stuff. Check it out. Click on "tips" to the left here and then upgrades. Natek has a neat page featureing upgrades that are field proven by Hyper and Hurtt and others.. Nice pictorial directory of a "How to Hot Rod yor' Gleaner"

 

[Art]

Dan,

 

[Tom]

We have been totally impressed with mods to our R60 with a P1 processor. I can roar through wet, stringy beans as fast as the 525 will cut them with no rumbling. We also noticed similar improvements in corn. If I remember correctly, these are the mods we did: double stack helicals, add more helicals above feeder, high_low cylinder bars, no reverse bars, square concave with cylinder using Hypers method, add 2 paddles on discharge end, open front of chaffer, and reduce cylinder speed. We didnt add a separator grate because of time constraints but we should have. With these mods I can pick corn at 200rpm cylinder speed but I have to go up to 300 to get good separation. I understand the separator grate allows 200rpms. As you know, this is considerably better than a stock machine. A word of caution when cutting wet beans. Clean the machine before quitting for the night. That stuff likes to get hot very fast. You guys with stock machines dont have to worry about this because you probably cant cut wet beans unless you are a better operator than I am. Tom Russell

 

[Dan]

You have it about right Art. We could go like crazy when straw was hot and dry but when straw got tough we would fall on our face. By shiming out helicals we could run slower cylinder speeds and go when it was much tougher. There was a channal helical kit put out in the early 80's for edible beans and green sunflowers. That kit worked very well in the beans but the guys that had the edible beans always took the kit out and replaced the standard flat iron helicals for other crops. They just didn't want to take the chance that channal helicals would cause crop loss so they switched back and forth every year. After shiming helicals out and leaving it that way for all crops we started leaving channal helical kits in also for all crops. Either way works very well even when very tough conditions. Channal helicals would be best if you have edible beans but will cost you more. Making up shims from flat iron and adding green stem helical kit is cheaper and still works OK in edible beans. Seems like the smoother you flow the straw threw the cage the better chance of getting the seeds out of the straw. We have found that reverse bars didn't help a bunch in saving crop but could rob a bunch of power in tough conditions so we try leave them out. I was not in the field before and after flat rasp bar was fastened into seperator side but reports are very encouraging that crop loss was reduced both by what they can find on the ground and by the cylinder loss monitor. We had run for years without flat rasp bar with minimal losses but it seems that them losses could be cut back even more with the bar. We think the extra two paddles on end of rotor helps to prevent build up in rotor and helps to feed chopper or discharge beater more evenly. I sure wish we would of been smart enough to leave channal helicals in or shim helicals out back in the early '80's for that sure helps to make a machine out of them. Good luck in whatever you do.