You guessed it, rain. 4.3 inches in 2 days. 15 miles North got 9 and I even heard of 12 inches last night at Swea City, Iowa. If you were a lighting rod salesman, you would have been a rich man last night. We got the SCH upside down today on the 8030. To do the guards, you will need 2 of the topless guards at the pitman end. Your out end guards each need 1 of their points ground off a bit to fit in behind the wobble box skid on the left and the right end skid. Before I ground them, I welded the point alittle bit better then the factory did along the side. The hard part was the right hand skid plate did not have the bends in the right places to give the sickle room enough to run free and not at all for the guard even with the tip ground off. We took off the skid, and put on the guard. Next we straitend out the 2 factory bends that are in the skid. We then bolted up the skid from the back end and marked and made a new bend upward, infront of the ground off point of the guard. About an inch from that bend we made a second bend forward. A third small bend then made it line up with the top 2 bolt holes. We never heated it at all. It was straightend in the vise and bent over the edge of the welding table with a hammer. We even used the old plastic over our new bends and it looks fine. These bends sound like a lot of work, but 20 minutes of trial and fitting and it's done. I did not see any other way to do it because you can't have the guard tip being pushing up on and twisting the sickle and they will when the head is let down. Raised up, it looked fine, but let it down and they hit. Back on the pitman end, make sure the the pitman drive bar that bolts to your sickle. Make sure that it will NOT hit the the third guard on the under side. Our first and second guard are both topless. We retimed the sickle after all of this and I know it comes close under there. Just something to watch for. After it is all done, we took it out in the middle of the driveway where it is flat. Fired up the sep. and header and let the head down on the header height control. After runnihg awhile we shut it off and the tip of the sickle teeth measured 1 1_2 inches to the ground! SWEET! The sickle was tipped downward last year and so far has not been changed, but likely it will be. It looks good in the yard, so I can't wait to get it back to the field to compair. The other part is the sickle itself. We pulled it out and turned it end for end and upside down. Next we split it at the splices about 5 to 6 feet from each end. All of the sickle teeth need to be removed from these bars and reinstalled backward. Keith, said we would need to. I can't explain it, but when you see it you will understand why. The middle of the sickle will not have to have a thing done to it. Rework the teeth on the ends and bolt them up the the middle. The big bolt from the wobble box to the sickle bearing had the jam nut on the top of the arm before. Now it goes on the bottom between the arm and the bearing. It sounds like alot, but it looks worth doing. Thank you Keith for being brave enough to be the first one to try.
