Combines Broken Auger

Had one do the same thing on a 62 two weeks ago while picking corn. You couldn't have sawed it any straighter than it broke. Don't know why. Just one of those things I guess.

We had a similar experience a few years back also, when we found the two pieces it looked as if it had been broken for quite some time as there was very clean metal inside and on one portion of it it was almost rusty. The dealer told us that we had too much tension on the clean grain elevator chain, we were told to keep it so you could just move the chain back and forth by hand on the sprocket which is what we had but like your shaft it broke regardless.

broke one on my R-52 two years ago funny how the dealers always come up with a excuss ain't it. I think the shaft was crystalize by the weld. there was a heavy weld right where it broke.but of coarse it had to be something we did rightIJIJ heard that before lol !

I believe the major cause of shafts breaking is non-concentric sprocketsthe center hole isnt centered in the tooth pattern. Have you noticed a loose chain can be tight as a fiddle string if you roll it over 1_2 a turnIJ You have to keep playing with it until the chain is still loose when both sprockets are at their high points. There are some solutions: 1) Buy better quality sprockets, but I havent been able to find any. 2) Mark the high points on both sprockets and set them so one is on the high point when the other is on the low point. 3) leave plenty of slack in the chains. 4) Join the I hate chain drives club. Tom in MN