Combines Concave wear

I think you would be really dissatisfied if you didn't get the worn concave replaced or built back up. That worn concave will gobble up your new cylinder bars. They will really wear with out that good straight edge behind them.

How rounded off are the barsIJ If it is just the "edge" is rounded then you maybe able to get by alright. If the rounding goes back to the point that the top of the bar has only half the thickness left, you probably have a problem. If your wheat is dry and easy to thresh, you can get away with a lot. Some of these new variaties you have to about beat to death to get them seperated. These will give you trouble if you have "a lot" of wear. It will also depend on conditions during harvest as to how tuff it is. There will be wear on the bars with a machine of this age and hours, it is how much of the thickness or top surface has been lost. I can't remember if we talked about the head any or not. Check the flighting on the auger for wear on the edge. If it is rounded, take a hand grinder and square it back up. This will increase the feeding tremendously. Also make sure the head has a floor stripper in it for the auger. This sits under the auger. Will look like a piece of angle iron. If you don't have one make sure you get it. Has to be ordered out of whole goods to get the complete kit, including the bolts.

Do you know what crops this machine had been running beforeIJ Went back to your original post and looked at the hours again. Unless it had been running a crop with an awful lot of dirt in it, I might be a little leary of the hour meter being right if the bars are worn back real far. Our "90" machine still has the same cyld. bars in it as when we got it and the concave has some wear, but not worth replacing yet. Conditions where you are at can effect that tho. It might not take the same amount of hours to produce more wear. Just a thought. I just wouldn't think it would be worn out at 1000 seperator hours.

OhioCCA....To my knowledge the machine had only cut wheat milo and corn. Mostly wheat though. Now this is according to the dealer. From what I can tell by looking at the concaves It seems to me that only the edges are rounded. I don't believe much face material has been lost yet if any. I can't tell on the front of the concaves since I can't get my big hand in there or my eyes to see. I'm telling you what I see at the rear of the concaves. This is by pulling the cover above the feederhouse and below the cab off and looking in between the cylinder bars. Is there a way to measure how much face material is worn offIJ First day of harvest will tell much I understand but that is a heck of a time to decide to put in a set of concaves.......As for the auger flighting in the header. When you say grind it square. Do you mean just thatIJ Grind the end of the flighting so that it's flat across and makes a 90 degree to the side of the flightingIJ If so then do you have to pull the auger back some against those angle irons in the header so that there is a tighter fitIJ There has been a piece of the flighting replaced I know because of the welding done in the header. Not sure what happened but by looking at it I would assume the fellow that had it before me tried to run something very hard through it. I'll wait for your reply and thanks again so very much for what you have told me so far. I've learned more from you I think lately then from any book I've read.

For an eyeball measurement on concave wear, compare the roundness of the leading edge with the radius of a BB--if it's near that radius, you should consider replacement. Most operators in our area get around 700 to 800 hours on 9K series

Excellent.....I have some more to go before having to replace the concaves then. The edges are rounded but nowhere near to the comparison of a bb. Of course I realize that the front wears considerably more than the rear of the concaves but I think I can get a mirror in there to see and now I know what I'm looking for. Thank you!!!

TJ gave you probably the best rule of thumb for concave wear that I have seen. Thanks TJ. While we're talking about the concaves, take the time and check the level on them. The proceedure for this is outlined in the owners manual. I use a drill bit for my guage. Some of the other guy's may have a better idea. This is a pain to do, but it is well worth the effort. Back to the flighting on the head auger. What we do is keep it square, the flighting edge that contacts the crop should be 90 degree to the flighting face. The face being the wide side of the flight that is welded to the center tube. If this has never been done on this head, you probably have a nice round corner instead of a square one. This round edge will allow the crop to be pushed away from the auger and allow bunching instead of grabbing the crop and taking it to the feeder house. To correct this we take the drive chain off of the auger and position the reel all the way forward (we do have hyd. for-aft reel adjust, makes this easy). Take a hand grinder and grind the edge back down so it is square. If you do this once a year it dosen't take much. Keep the grinder parallel to center tube or slightly down to the back (the face of the flight that is away from the crop). You may need to readjust the auger position if you have to grind alot off to regain this edge. Generally when we do this on a once a year basis we aren't removing that much material, so the adjustment isn't necessary. The adjustment procedure is in the operators book for the head. You want to make this adjustment with the head raised. They will deflect some when you raise the header. This can cause the auger to rub if it was adjusted in the lowered position. I may need to clarify myself on the floor stripper. There are 2 strippers in this head, or should be. The one on the back or rear of the head that you can see by looking down over the back. This one has a flat bar which is held by a series of bolts in slotted holes. This allows adjustment of this bar to the auger. If when adjusting the auger position, both ends or the center are close, but a wide gap remains in the oposite position, you need to then make the balance of the adjustment by moving this strip. The other stripper is on the "floor" of the head and can be seen by looking in from the front. This will look like a piece of angle iron. The only adjustment is the height of the auger. you want to make sure that this stripper is in the head or get one. It saves alot of headaches when you get in tough conditions.

Main thing is to look for roundness on the leading edges of the crossbars. A radius won't retard material flow for thresh as well as a square corner. Crossbar height should be 3_8" above the wires which pass thru from front to rear. This is measured at the rear edge of the crossbars -- just lay a piece of 3_8" keystock against the backside of the crossbar, and if the crossbar doesn't match the keystock height consider replacement. Hope this is clear.

When the leading edge corners of the crossbars are rounded over to about 1_8" radius it's time to consider replacement. If the top of the crossbar is worn at an angle which slopes from front to rear, the concave has lost virtually all ability to retard for thresh. Hope this is understandable. There's a lot more to it, but this will allow an eyeball check.

How much wear is too much depends on which crop you are harvesting. Do do a good job of threshing tough wheat requires concaves that have little wear on the leading edge of the concave bars. Corn and easy threshing beans can be threshed using concaves that have severe wear. For tough wheat, concaves that have 800 or more hours are, in my opinion, worn out.