Combines Static causes bearing failureIJ

from the engineers in times past,,,,,, take 100 combines, chain 50 , leave 50 W_O, keep up with brg failures. - they could find a way to prove whatever they wanted and spend a fortune in the process. If anyone has a question, drag a chain. Cost nothing as I would wager all have a piece of chain and some baling wire laying around...... heck I even have a St Christopher, a mouse trap and a cupie doll with my MIl's name on it stuck full of pins.....

Cheap and effective. Heck, if it helps you from having to stop and clean your windows one time a day then its worth it. TBRAN, keep us informed on how that Cupie doll helps!

only results so far are pricks from sitting on the n$%^ thing, have no idea as to how it always finds its way camo'd into the seat ....

We drag a chain anyway to keep windows clean. I had just never heard the bearing failure reason. OKFarmer

tbran, have you ever considered that your MIl might have a bigger and uglier doll with bigger pins than you haveIJ Just a suggestion; A good quick way to stuff your combine bearings is to wash your machine down. If you want to do stuff them even quicker, use a high pressure water washer! Water penetrates under the bearing seals and corrosion sets in. If available, use an air compressor to blow down although, obviously, a water wash down is the only option for our north american friends who are battling mud and water in extremely wet harvest conditions. No problems with excess water down in the western part of the state of Victoria in Australia. We don't have any! With only 6% water reserves left in our reservoirs after a series of droughts and dry years, we have been banned from washing our cars except for the windows and mirrors. Garden watering is totally out except for using grey water. On sports fields the grass is dying or dead as no water can be applied. 2300 farms over an area about 100 miles by 100 miles square that normally get water through a channel system once a year for their farm dams are now being or will be supplied by a rationed supply from water tankers and that water has to do both for domestic and crop spraying and livestock. Most livestock [ 2.3 million sheep in this area ] are being sold off for slaughter as there is not enough water for them over the next year until we get some, hopefully good, winter rains and run-off for the reservoirs in mid to late 2007. There are no underground aquifers or bores [ wells ] through out all of this area. Morale here, is very low and stress levels and depression are serious problems.

To coin a former pres's comment "I feel your pain" however no one upside can imagine THAT kind of drought. Unbelievable. Global warming, el nino pestulance etc - all a part of world history. It hurts when you are part of catastrophies like you are in. We had a drought in '80 and 83 - trees died. We harvested 7 bu beans and 60 bu corn in these years. Hard to recover from. Depression - yup understand. A rationalazation is 'well every one else around us is in the same boat' however if the boat sinks - .... Biblical Job lost all except he had except his dignity and integrity - things the world cannot take from you - the mark of a man is not to ask why bad things happen to good people - it is to ask what happens in the life of a good man who has bad things happen to him. life is full of cupie dolls, most all of them ARE bigger and badder than yours. Family, friends, faith and humor get us through a world of problems. I wish rains of plenty on you and yours.

Gleaner went through a time of brg failures about 20 years ago. Today they order oversize shafting and turn down every shaft to almost 0 runout. This keeps brgs running true - side to side. The old gleaners as the ones today have the strongest frame in the industry. These rigid frames that hold the major brgs will not flex to absorb the impact of shaft wobble the way some others will. The old l-M combines with a single wire brush holder to the electrical clutches did prematurely fail main clutch shaft brgs due to grounding through the ball brgs. Thus the new dual wire units. We have had customers weld up snapping rolls in corn heads grounding only at the frame. This usually results in total brg faiure in the upper snapping roll brgs. So electrical current can cause failures,, but this is static electricity.... but then it can cause fires at the gas pump..... whoknows. ...

Thank you, Tim, for your thoughts.

Tires vs. drag chain. When I finished harvest this fall, I subjected my R72 to a test that should prove that the rubber in tires has enough carbon black so it is NOT! an insulator. The readings indicate to me, that the tires in firm contact with the earth have much more conductivity that a chain dangling and barely brushing ground when the stubble isn't holding it up. I had time to check out just how conductive combine tires are, whether they insulate, and whether the drag chain helps, hinders, or is mostly psychological. Here is what I found: Front tires are bias ply 30.5 X 32 and the rear tires are 16.9 X 26. I ran the front tire onto a sheet of bright, untarnished copper and one lead of a Fluke 77 VOM to the copper sheet and the other to one of the lug bolts of the rim. In order to confirm that readings didn't reflect capacitively charging the machine and affecting the reading, I took readings with leads first connected one way and then the other. There was no noticeable difference in the resistance readings that was dependent on the polarity of the test probes. The readings also remained constant, indicating no capacitive charge or discharge. Front tire lug bolt to sheet reading was 97 K Ohm. When I moved the combine to place the rear tire on the copper sheet, I got a value of 350 K Ohm for the back tire. That gives us two paths with a resistance of 97K and two with a resistance of 350K. If I remember my basic Ohms law, to find the value of resistors in parallel you sum the reciprocal of all the values and then find the reciprocal of that number to determine total resistance. I came up with 37.975 K Ohm from combine frame to ground. If you consider that walking across a carpet in a dry room will charge your body to about 35,000 volts, then the path to ground offered by the tires would let nearly 1 amp of current pass at that voltage level. Ed in MT

He, He, He! I like your style Ed I would agree with you on your equation, also know from experience that there is some conductivity thru the tires! One of Marvins employees was driving his JD 6620 around the paddock and happened to go under the high tension power wires!!! The two way radio did a little smoking and I understand made a little noise inside the cab,!(I also heard a noise from the driver at the time!!)and with in 5 minutes he had millions of holes in I think in all but one tire! So it goes to show there must be some conductivity thru tire for them to get pin holes in them from electricity!! Rolf