Combines feeding problems with 525 flex

NDDan

Guest
I'd try a couple things. First square up the edge of auger flighting with hand held grinder. Second you may want to remove rear hold down strap for back of bottom feather sheet. I've heard many reports of guys removing bottom feather sheets when running the raised sheets. Just replace the screws that were holding down the hold down in there original positions. I think these mods will help more material get under auger and convey toward center better. Good luck
 

R_O_M

Guest
Mentioned this a long time ago! Rolf came up with this. Check that the speed that the header auger sweeps the material across the front is faster than the ground speed. Auger pitch times the RPM gives the auger sweep speed. Our 94, 500 series flex header auger had the wrong sprocket and was running far too slow. Speeding it up so that the sweep speed exceeded the ground speed made a big difference. It helps to stop bunching in front of the auger. A question to Dan, tbran and all the other very innovative Gleaner gurus out there; Has anybody ever experimented with different auger pitches on the header augerIJ Reason for the question; In the N7 parts book there was a 24 inch pitch flighting available for the N series specifically for Australia. I know of only one N7 that was equipped with this 24 inch pitch as compared to the usual 30 inch pitch. This machine, according to the then owners, never ever had feeding problems whereas all other N's used to regularly have feeding and plugging problems. In an effort to improve feeding, we installed a second lot of flighting on our N7 header midway between the original flighting with some improvement in feeding but not significant. Auger pitch on the current model headers is 27 inches. Perhaps a faster turning 24 inch pitch may operate better as the angle that the leading edge of the auger meets the crop would be in a more vertical position. On the N7, when the heads of a crop were leaning towards the centre, that side fed very well whereas leaning away from the centre plugged regularly, so I made a set of very light crop lifters out of 3_8 rod that were bent towards the centre and tilted the crop heads toward the centre as it was cut. This made a huge difference to the feeding on the N7 header, particularly if the crop had a lean on it. The 500 series header on our R62 feeds a lot better but still needed a lot of work to get the best we could out of it. We may not even pull the combine into the paddocks this year as we have just had up to 36C [ flowering stage of the cereals! ] and down to one percent [ 1% ] humidity, so low that the meteorologists have no records of it happening before. It was also the hottest October day in 90 years in S.E. Australia. Around 200 fires started today in Victoria today with about 8 major ones still going. Wind speeds were around the 45 kph [ 30 mph ] gusting to 85 kph [ over 50mph ]. A very bad day! This on top of only about 7 inches of rain in our area for the year so far. Australia may not have enough wheat or barley to export this year so you guys else where in the world should really be looking at some very good prices. As it is the world will consume at least 51 million tonnes more grain than will be produced this year and world stocks are running down fast. Good luck! I just hope our turn comes very soon.
 

Tom_Russell

Guest
1% humidityIJ Do you have to wear a moistened mask to keep your nose from getting chapped and soreIJ
 

Rolf

Guest
Tom It's been so dry here of late that the Kangaroos and Koala's have book Quantas flights out of Oz for a bit of R and R!!! Rolf
 

R_O_M

Guest
Hi Tom. The 1% humidity was at Mildura in Victoria's north west. They also had a max temp of 37.4 C [ 99.3 F ] and a dew point low of minus 28.3 C [ minus 19 F or 51 F below freezing for you guys.] Down here at Horsham, 250 kilometres south of Mildura, we had a max temp of 36.4 C [ 97.5 F ] a minimum relative humidity of 4% and a dew point low of -12.1C [ 10.2 F ] This is 3 months before what is normally our hottest time of the year in January.
 

NDDan

Guest
I've never changed the pitch on an auger but I did try slowing down. This was a 30" pitch auger and problem was straw coming around the back and over the top. This was fairly common in some straw and terrible in some other straws. I imagine the steep pitch had most to do with wanting to pull the straw past the strippers. I bet the 24" at faster speed would be better. The standard sprocket on these heads has 19 teeth and the one I put on was a 71362512 had 16 teeth. A bulliton in early '90s made mention to this slower auger speed. It did not help enough to make any difference. What we did to cure this problem is fasten another stripper under auger. We used 1.5" X 1_2" channel iron. I was once in a variety of straw that we had to add two rows of channel iron to hold straw under auger. I've never seen this problem with 7" flighting augers. I'm so sorry to hear about your crops this year. According to JR and the news it is not good at all for you guys. Hang in there.
 

venturis40

Guest
i just removed the raised sheets to clean under them and to clean the top side of the skid shoes. if memory serves correct the raised sheets dont extend as far as the rear of the standard sheets ..... duh... it just hit me... bet they extend past the front edge of the header though but the rear edge of the raised sheets is slightly higher than the rear hold down is there an oem part number for a sprocket to increase the auger speedIJ have only had straw come back over in the early day time and late at nite when straw is super tough august wieser rosholt, sd
 

NDDan

Guest
I was thinking the same as you when I first heard of leaving bottom sheets off. The hold down for bottom sheets is about 3" to the rear of the front of header pan. So I can see how it would work to leave bottom sheets off. I have not did it but bet I will sometime. That hold down for bottom sheets is still in the way even with the raised sheet and will hold up some flow from getting under auger. It would be no problem leaving the hold down off if leaving the bottom sheets off. I would just put pan head bolts back in to plug the holes. Maybe even use a smaller pan head bolt to prevent any restriction. I don't know if there is a sprocket to speed up auger. I believe the rear sprocket is the same between 500 and 800 until they went to n60 chain. I think front sprocket stayed the same also when they made the move to 7" flighting. They likely needed to stay a same RPM to move the same amount of material if that is when they made the move from 30" pitch to 27" pitch. Enough quessing for now. I'll have do some more studying on this sometime. I've never had to think much about the 7" flighting augers for they rarely have any problem handling anything we throw at it. Main thing is to get material to and under it. With something close to 100% air reels on the latest machines I rarely find any problems feeding the beasts. Have a good one.
 
 
Top