Combines row crop head rotary cutter shafts

[greenstrat]

the upper hex shafts that drive off of the bevel gears will be just as worn, if the cutters are already shot. I salvaged a couple of row heads from neighbors that had been all rebuilt not long before I got them just for this purpose. When I got a table I sold my runner and most of the pieces, and was ecstatic to see it all leave. I would try a local machine shop to see if you could get them rebuilt cheaper than buying new. Wouldn't be hard using a mill to get the hex flat. I hope you realize that this is not a problem that will go away. GS

 

[Hunter]

On the 853A row head, the rotary cutter shafts are round with grooves milled in the top of the shaft for the drive gear and the shafts at the rear that are driven by the beveled gears are also round with the same grooves milled on the bottom of the shaft for the beveled gear to drive the shaft and grooves on the top of this shaft to drive the knife and the belt. The old 853 head had the shafts with the flats on them. You can order the shafts for an 853A from Shoup for 109.95 and the part number is BH248300.

 

[greenstrat]

The uppers driving the belts have a splined top for the sprockets with a hex through the bearings below them and wobble out just like the rotary knive shafts which are hex. Rotary shafts use a fine thread nut on top to try to hold the shaft but the threads will quickly pull out letting the rotary knife head drop and not cut anymore. My fix was to cut off the old bolt on top and weld on a good course thread 5_8" bolt with a lock nut. No more problem there.. also big help to put elastametric (spIJ) tighteners on the belts also spring tighteners on all the rest of the chains. gs

 

[Silver_Shoes]

Hey thanks, I never even gave that a thought. Yes the top threads have been wearing, but we put a tighting nut on them so they dont give much problem. Mainly it was the shaft being worn itself and I thought about building it up in a lathe and then machining it down, but I still had the thread problem. With you idea maybe I can rebuild the whole shaft and save some bucks. Thanks much BRT

 

[greenstrat]

sure.. It only takes maybe fifteen minutes to do one complete reman on the rotary knife top bolt when you get the procedure down. I did 7 (one for a spare)in an easy morning and was running after dinner when I finally had this braingas. Use a 4.5" grinder with a metal cutting blade to do the deed. Makes a clean strait cut without wearing your arm out. You need to fabricate a couple of spring loaded tighteners for the n60 drive chains that run under the side shields too so you all you have to do is dribble bar_chain oil on them in the morning. Cut a 1" hole over each rotary knife so you can do the same there without having to lift the shields, which makes you much happier. With spring tighteners on every chain_belt, you will probably never replace any of them including the belts. When the belts get real far out, just pull a link. I have never broken one of those and they ran thousands of acres after I figured this all out. Hex shafts and bevel gears are the big weak area here, and cannot be fixed. I was going to get another corn head and reman the thing into a row head since all the gears run in oil and never shell out. I got a drill instead. Not sorry either. good luck.. GS