Combines SCH knife head beef up questionsIJ

We broke one on our 8030 last fall cutting 18" row beans. I welded ours and beleive it or not, my welding held up. I can remember doing it, but sitting here at the keybroad I can't remember how I did it.

SCH has beefed-up the sickle head. I believe your parts supplier should have the superceded number. We broke several and beefed the last one up ourselves. It then broke in a different spot. Make sure your guards are all the way forward and the sickle head isn't contacting anything as it goes through it's stroke.

I think the major factor contributing to SCH sickle parts breaking is flexing of far left skid plate. This plate has been reinforced with a rib going from stibilizing tie rod point to area just behind wobble box. We have not broke any SCH sickle drive parts when this heavier skid was installed. There is an extra point at which skid is fastened to cutter bar also so this prevents the deflection. It is the deflection of this area that the stiffer pulling SCH is having to with stand. Sickle drive parts just won't live long with this deflection. I'd order new skid and heavier stabilizer A-frame if 25' or larger. I'd also order spring belt tentioner kit if you have 8000 with out it.

Dan, I think thats what I need. ANy part numbers for that new style flex plate and stabilizer so I won't go into the dealership blindIJ I just put a new tie rod on it before we started cutting wheat too.. had to replace one last year too. It always breaks right on the threads. Guess the newer flex plate would solve a lot of that tooIJ It is a 30 foot flex. It has the threaded rod belt tensioner with the rubber bushings. Our older 800 series 25 foot flex has the gas shock style tensioner and it seems to have a lot better luck keeping the belt tight. The SCH system will just stop if you pick up something between the sickle and gaurd. Which is fine most of the time cause that helps to save sections and gaurds instead of breaking them. Thanks for the help.

We had a 500series platform with a tiger Jaws sickle and had little maintenance. We traded for an 800 head with an SCH sickle and have had a terrible time breaking drive heads. We replaced the left hand skid plate at start of season last Fall and still had breakage. I thought the SCH was supposed to pull easier with alternating sections. This is only a 20' platform.

1994 500 series 30 ft. flex head. Probably one of the first 30 ft 500 series flex's built as it needed a lot of beefing up and mods to make it reliable. Were breaking 2 or 3 tie rod ends on the stabiliser bar through the threads every year. [ about 1000 acres flex operation and 1400 acres in the locked up position per year. ] Made up a heavy 1_4" plate plus reinforcing rib for lH end skid plate as shown in Hyper Mods. Made a stabiliser bar out of 1"x2" RHS. Also made a hinge that allows around 10 mm's or more fore and aft movement of the ball part of the tie rod end. We found that sufficient fore and aft movement in the skid plate_ knife bar from wear and slackness in the parallel arms created a situation where all the fore and aft pressure from the skid plate was being loaded onto the ball joint tie rod end, instead of the parallel arms. The tie-rod then fatigued and snapped through the weakest point, the threads. Putting a hinge between the tie rod end and the stabiliser bar or our latest system of very heavy rubber grommets pressed into a tube and with a tie rod with an extended shaft and threaded section running through the grommets, allows movement of the skid plate_ knife bar to occur fore and aft but prevents any sideways movement of the skid plate_ knife bar. The first modified hinged tie rod end lasted some 4 or 5 seasons and was only replaced because the ball wore out. We also use a chromed and chrome steel shaft through the stabiliser bearing bushes. We use to cut out 2 or 3 shafts per season. The same chrome shaft has now been in service for some 9 seasons and shows almost no wear. The stabiliser arm shaft bushes have been replaced once since installing the chrome shaft. The current tie rod set up is a serious weakness in the Gleaner flex heads but can be easily fixed if their designers only had a good look at the problem. The header is now very reliable with no problems arising from the skid plate, stabiliser bar, wobble box and belt drive areas since we have done our mods. Our mods and fixes from quite a few years ago can be seen in Hyper Mods - Header Tips and Mods -Heddy's Hyper Mods. Cheers.

Skid n71399928 is for 30' and 20'. Skid n71399929 is for 25'. A-frame stibilizer for 30' is a n059362n1. A-frame for 25' is n059496n1. Belt tention kit for the 8000 is 71407243. It is a push spring setup with shock absorber. You may want to run a little loose if you have rocks. Shortly after the SCH became available they came with a 7_8" threaded tie rod and head to accept it. The earlier 3_4" thread just couldn't take the flexing. With the heavier skid the 3_4" may be fine but could allready be failing. You'll want to have about 22 rivets to resecure poly skid if so equiped.

I'd have to think the SCH does not pull as easy for that is when the problems seemed to start. Of course a worn sickle and guards of any brand could start out the same problem. I would check to see you got the heavy skid when you replaced it. Otherwise you could of had cracked parts before you started or maybe your getting to much play in bearings like stated above on rigid head breaking parts. I wouldn't think the 20' would need the heavier parts that bad but then it is only 33% smaller than 30'and maybe loaded similiarly if driving faster!!!

Forgot to mention in other posts that heavy skid and A-frame looks to have gone into production sometime in '03 S_N HM84606

last fall I put on the largest pully I could get from sch and my problems stoped I have the heavy skid 3_4 threaded rod and heavy a arm. I could not see any differance in the cutting runing the slower sickel speed. Before installing the larger pully the sickel would run smooth untill you would speed the rpms up the last 100_150 rpms then it would shake violently. tim