Combines R70 on fire today

I guess anything is possible, but I have a hard time believing that bean straw would spontaniously combust like wet hay will. Wet hay will heat and what causes it to combust is being packed so tight - the heat from all the bales builds up to the point where it gets so hot it just goes. Bean straw in a combine is not packed and there wouldn't be enough of it to get hot enough - at least I wouldn't think so. Could it have been a small rock gone through - threw a spark and ignited dust sitting somewhere inside - dust pile sitting in there smolderingIJ We had a bearing go out on the main clutch shaft of the M3 we used to own while cutting beans. When we stopped, we could smell something burning, but looked all over the machine but couldn't find where it was comming from. After convincing ourselves it wasn't coming from the combine, we quit for the day. Next morning, we commenced to disassembling the trouble spot - when we removed the bearing housing it instantly combusted into flame. Here bean dust inside had been ignited by the bad bearing and smoldered all night long due to lack of O2 until we took it apart and it got some air. We felt very fortunate it didn't get it's air during the night and burn the combine, the shed it was in, and all the other machinery in the shed! Perhaps something of this nature is what is happening to your machine. Better take a peek out the window right now to see if she ain't smokin'! Best of luck!

When we tried out a R50 it did the same thing. We did not fid the problem untill we ran it a night. It looked like there was a grinder runing in the dischare chute. It turned out to be a bearing out on the top of the first conveyor chain. The sparks were coming out the chute in corn, beans could have made for a lot of smoke. The sparks could be coming in from before the cylinder. Good thing the combine new they were not to go in the grain tank and put them out with the trash.

I have heard of CIH folks having long pea vines wrap around the discharge end of the rotor and then get hot enough to shatter fire around the field and eventually start burning in the combine. I would look for bean stalks wrapping somewhere where the should not be.

Thats a strange one. Are the beans unusually wet of dry or is there some other factor that is different from other yearsIJ let us know what you find out, and good luck. By the way, how are they yieldingIJ Tom in MN