Combines Question for John or any N Series owner

The series won't make any difference in how it performs in soybeans. I have a "Hyperized" N6 and it was 80% Hyperized when I bought it, so I finished the job. It is an eating fool in beans as well as corn, I have more problem with the sickle speed and capability in green stems than even close to the rotor capacity. Now with green stems, it does cause more rotor noise(groans and growls)but it keeps on humming and have no noticable loss out the back from lack of threshing or seperation. I have never operated a Non-Hyperized Rotary in beans or corn. The Series 3 should have longer engine life and the accelerator rolls should be the bolt on kind, that makes a plus for that machine. Hyperizing might be easier too, and I would definitely spend the time and money to do that to the Series 3, my N6 keeps right up with a 2 yr old R62 in the neighborhood, and the 62 has a better factory rotor design than the N6 came out with originally and 50 more HP.

Anybody who says a Gleaner rotary is dismal in beans simply doesnt know which way is up. As John said, my only limitation in any kind of beans is the ability of the sickle to keep up with the rest of the machine. Around these parts most operators removed their cage sweeps long ago. Mine was removed before I bought the machine so I have no experience with one. I have had some trouble with bridging on the frame member between the thresher and separator sections in one bean variety. But I will tell you this. It isnt bad enough for me to ever consider going back to a conventional. I simply stopped planting that variety. You have to be careful in beans so you wait for them to dry. By that I mean dont cut beans that are so wet you have to dry them. The combine will handle wet beans, but drying is hard on the pocketbook. Tom in MN

The reason that I was asking is because this last growing season, we didn't have problems with harvesting wet beans. Our beans were down around 12% and the stems were still as green as the grass at a golf course. In our area, we got all the rains at the right time and it just kept the beans growing, but the plant was trying to tell itself that it was time to start drying down - I guess the roots and stems didn't listen. It didn't just happen with one variety or number, but with most of beans in about a county area. Thanks for the info.

Hey John, thanks for all the info that you've given - not just to me but to others that have asked similar questions. If I could get your address, I was hoping that you could walk me through what a hyperizing would entail and a guess on a dollar amount, that's if I would get one of the machines that I've talked about in the past. Again, thanks.

For the "Hyperizing" Go over to the left and open the "Tips" and the "Upgrades" within it. It give text and photos of the upgrade for the P1 which the N and R Series came out with, the P3 came out with the 2 Series of the R's 42_52_62_72. The cost depends on the Dealer and the labor you are willing to put in. The parts in my area vary widely from Dealer to Dealer. All of the work can be done in a reasonable farm shop with a good hoist or loader tractor to RandR the rotor. To finish mine, it cost $400. It already had the cage, chaffer, new rotor bars and paddles done. Hyperharvest would have a much better idea of the cost or Dan in ND(he is a dealer)

I would believe the dismal performance in the green stems that we get more and more of these days only if machine is still set up with factory helical setup from the late '70s and the '80s. Green straw would not convey very well and act just like wet straw and or Edible bean straw ect. Unfortunatly many or most of these older machines are still set up this way so reputation remains. Gleaner did put out a channel helical kit in the early '80s that would eliminate problem but was labeled for green sunflowers and edible beans. If Gleaner would of labled kit differently or installed them at plant I think the Gleaner story would read quite differently. Anyway there are ways to make helicals more aggresive to keep the green material moving. We did install channel helicals in early days for edible beans and green sunflowers which worked very well but pulled out for crops other than that (big mistake). Do not use angle iron flow retarder with the Gleaner channel iron helical kit. The first thing we did to get these machines to handle the green straw well with standard helicals (other than channel helical kit) is to shim present helicals with 1_4" flat iron that is cut and twisted to match underside of helical bar. At the same time as shimming helicals we added the Gleaner green stem helical kit that came out in late '90s plus we added two more discharge paddles at end of rotor. There are aftermarket double stack helical kits and or channel helical kits that match the original helical pattern that allready has the green stem helical kit installed. Number one is to get these helicals to convey tough straw and this holds true on all P1s. P1s are used in the '89 and prior R60-70s,R5-6-7s,N5-6-7s only. Any version of the helical bar upgrade will help a bunch but I prefer channel bar system. Price would vary alot on which system you would like to budget for. Some have bought used helicals to do the stacking with, some made their own 1_4" shims (we've had local machine shop make them),some buy aftermarket, ect. Some machines need helicals replaced anyway so I wouldn't add that to the cost of so called hyperizing. As seen over in tips then upgrades many of the corn soybean guys have shrunk seperator side of rotor of P1s to get a steggered height and bar setup which I would consider hyperizing. This can be done with used P3 stars and some locally purchased iron and maybe you can handle this yourself. Some have installed seperator grate for corn and soybeans on these older machines but many get by without it. If you are corn soybean only I would suggest the cylinder upgrade and would consider it hyperizing. Sorry to get into so called hyperizing or upgrading so much but it can vary on how far you go. Depending on what degree of a do it yourselfer you are ect. it could make quite a difference. Many do it yourselfers have claimed to have less than $1000US invested in these older machines to handle the straw we can get these days. I need to update upgrade section on our home page hurttequipment.com but you could visit there also for some ideas. You could go back threw the pages hear for I think everything been hashed over a few times. Most everything pertaining to P1s would be similiar to the machines you are looking at. Good luck.

Most all left to right motion cage sweeps have been removed hear too and we harvest alot more crops than corn and soybeans. The machine that has helicals to keep moving straw will have much less material getting ground threw cage thus less material for cage sweep and cleaning system to handle. With the condition that material can plug above concave arms we install the cage covers right next to them areas. We also build a divider wall straight up from left concave arm so material can't hang there and eventially plug.

I have an 1979 N6 that we have only run one season. It has the original thresher but updated separator cage. I was surprised how well it handled soybeans. In western KY, the humidity is high enough that dark usually stops soybean harvest. There were several times I ran one to two hours longer in the afternoon(even after dark)than I would have been able to with the JD 7700 that the N6 replaced.