Combines vane wear

Its been my experience that the vanes wear thin more so than down. I would look at the bottom of the angle and see if there is any groove wore into it. If it has any groove and if the edge is wore real thin and rounded, I would replace them. Its common to find the bolts wore down or even missing inside the cone and cage. If its still the stock cone, I would look real close at the weld seems. They will wear a groove into the metal right where the pieces are weldd together. If you dont catch it soon enough, it can wear thin and split open. Then you have to do the whole tear down again. When you removed the rotor, did you find any new secret tricks that you would share with usIJ What else are you going to do to the machine while you have it apartIJ

If you have that much bolt wear,then you may be close to replacement.The cones seem to get a hole in about the same spotn the cab side, about 2_3's back where there is a seam as I recall.If there is a deep groove worn in the cone on the rear side of the vanes,it is about shot.You can patch it,but since you have it apart now and are upgrading to a better rotor,you apparently want to keep it a while.Replace it and be done with it.You won't be sorry. Crawl up in the cage and replace any bent or worn vanes.Vanes move the crop,so don't be cheap here.Best time to do it is now. Good luck,and don't get hurt reassembling it.

I'm sure this is no new trick, I bought a 2 ton come along and removed the block using just one cable. Placed a 4x4 wooden timber across the top of the acess opening to the engine compartment and connected the come along. I then placed two pieces of 11 in. wide 1_8 in. sheet steel on top of the screens side by side the length of the rotor giving it somthing to slide on. I then used a cherry picker securing it with a chain to the bearing housing on the front of the rotor. One guy on top to slack the come along about 6 inches at a time and one on the ground pulling the cherry picker and rotor out. When we got the rotor almost clear of the machine I used a boom pole on the back of a tractor to lift it up and out of the way. No problems at all. As far as what else I will do: I think I will leave the vanes and replace the worn bolts. I will fire up my wire welder using hard surface wire and build the sharp edges on the impeller blades. Thanks for the reply and interest.