Combines Separator Cage Door Wear

[turbo]

I always wondered if the steep pitch helicals would create a high wear area from the crop being dumped all in one area. Sounds like the wear we used to get with a stock P-1. Doing the steep pitch helical trick just on the thresher side actualy looks like a P-1 helical setup to me and that did not work to good. I have never tried steep pitch helicals.

 

[tbran]

I checked on this on one machine, we did not see any excessive wear, BUT this was on a machine we had built the helical extention as we usually do and did run this helical about 2" over the separator plate we either cut out or remove in order to add teh helical extention. Thus this may prove your theory that extending the helical will avoid this wear area. This was on steep pitch thresher equipped machine R72. I really think though that the steep pitch prevents a lot of the 2nd pass threshing, it does reduce hp therefore it probably will not promote accelerated wear. We will check a few more machines with factory helical to see as we get around to it.

 

[R_O_M]

Absolutely no arguments about the advantages of the extended helical and the steep pitched helicals. Just something that may be a significant problem and has showed up on our R62 after some 3 or 4 seasons with the extended helical. Cheers!

 

[NDDan]

This small localized area has been highest wear area in cage before and after any helical mods. This holds true on small P3s as well which may point out that it is material spilling off concave. Small P3s (like in R50s) have narrower concave and same angle helicals as large P3 thus less material has ever been dumped there from helicals. I have an R50 with something near 3000 seperator hours where I just welded keystock across the thin legs. Now if on the large P3 you went with all steep pitch thresher side you would see that 1st helical from gearbox will dump onto filler across feeder which will dump onto far right side of seperator grate. The second helical from gearbox will dump ahead and slightly to left of this. Most of this material will go over the area of your concern. Now keep in mind that first helical from gearbox does not handle near the straw as second and third and so on. This would be evident to you if you studied the wear on helicals over the years. I think it would take many years of use to notice any excess wear if not all ready wore from previous years. I think you will see much less wear on left side of concave and cylinder bars over left side of convave with steep pitch setup which should far out weigh any cage wear. Not to mention concave to bar clearance staying true longer. Now to backup your idea on extending helical onto seperator grate. My good friend that invented the filler across feeder does extend helical onto grate a few inches now days. Don't know if it makes a difference but couldn't hurt. I worry little about agrivated wear hear for all our machines get sweeps which keeps area flowing. Same basic principles hold true if we go the cheaper route with leaving first helical alone and only tweak the second and third. Hope that all makes sense.

 

[NDDan]

Standard P1 helical setup does not compare very closely to what we do with P3s. P1 had steep pitch on thresher side up to but not extending into seperator. Crop had to make transition onto shallow pitch at beginning of seperator. P3 with full steep pitch thresher extend well across width of seperator grate and normal pitch takes over after the seperator grate. P1s were greatly improved with Gleaner transition kit which hooked up the angle of thresher and seperator helicals at three locations. This was improved even more by shiming helicals by 1_4". I think you'll see what I mean if you take another look.