BIRSAY, Sask. – When John Deere combines with conventional cylinders plug, the standard routine is to take a heavy steel bar that comes with the combine and physically turn the cylinder backward to loosen the jam. That worked fine for Harvey Lesyk until he became sick. Following surgery, Lesyk didn’t have the strength to handle the bar and unplug his combine.
“For somebody that isn’t healthy, it’s a fairly labour intensive operation to do it that way. Lots of times there would be two or three of us trying to pull on that bar,” said Lesyk, who farms near Birsay.
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To solve his problem, Lesyk designed a unit he calls the Harvest Tool, a patented winch system that attaches to the rear of the front combine axle and pulls the cylinder pulley backward.
“You’re always worried about plugging. If I plugged, I’d have to go get somebody to help me unplug. With this unit, I can do it myself,” he said.
“The main item is what we call the key. It fits into the pulley to hook the winch onto to pull it. We use a 12 volt, 5,000 pound winch to pull on the key. It’s like you’d find on a 4×4 truck. A winch you’d use on an ATV is too light. We started out with a smaller one, but we used them up. They’d strip the gears and pack up on us.”
Lesyk said the key fits into the cylinder pulley at about the 11 o’clock position and is winched down to about the eight o’clock position. Any farther and the operator risks damaging the pulley or cylinder.
“The key is designed with a chain link that the winch hooks onto. If somebody does try to pull it too far, that link will break rather than ending up with a broken pulley or something else damaged.”
The kit includes a template to mark where the mount attaches to the combine axle. Lesyk said it is mounted by drilling holes in the axle, tapping the holes and bolting the mounting frame directly to the axle. The winch bolts directly to the frame.
“The mounting box is designed to hold the electrical controls for the winch inside,” he said.
“Then the key fits onto the side of it, and it’s heavy enough to hold the lid shut so nothing will bounce out. That way, everything is right there. You’re not going looking for anything.”
The wiring is permanently installed, with circuit breakers, to the battery. Lesyk said he runs both a positive and negative cable to the battery so he’s not using any of the combine’s electrical components.
Lesyk added a separate feature on his own combine.
“I made a power box with a positive tab on it, so if I want to charge the battery on the combine I can pop the cover off and hook onto it without having to carry the charger up top by the engine,” he said.
“The other thing we use it for – tanks on our fuel trucks have 12 volt electric pumps, so we can hook the fuel pump leads to that connector and use that to power our pumps.”
Lesyk said he will typically pull with the winch three or four times before digging the plug out of the cylinder.
“If you have a lot of debris in it, you’d pull it back three pulls, crawl under and pull out what’s loose underneath, then pull it back three more times. That normally will put you back on the field again without too much problem.”
While Lesyk sometimes plugs in cereal crops, it’s more common in pulse crops.
“You’re running the cylinder at a slow speed with a 36 foot header and a wad goes in – bang, you break a shear pin and you’re plugged. You open the concave wide open, open the
cleanout hatch under the header, hook this on, pull it back enough to free the debris and clean it right out,” he said.
“When we used to use the hand tool, we’d get it freed up as much as you could, try it and end up smoking the belt. Then you’re back in there pulling on that wrench again. This way, you can clean the cylinder right out so that when you start up, you’re not putting excess load on your belts.”
Lesyk said using this system is significantly faster than the old way.
“All you are is a bit dirty. You’re not played out from fighting with that wrench. The other way, at times we’d spend an hour or longer getting unplugged. With this, approximately 20 minutes and you’ll be back on the field. It’s way faster and way easier on the operator.”
Lesyk said the Harvest Tool works on John Deere combines with the two speed cylinder gearbox, such as the 9500, 9600, 9610 and 9650.
“Those are the ones we’ve been involved with so far. We’re looking at adapting to some other combines, but haven’t set anything up yet.”
It requires about two hours to install the unit and retails for $2,950.
Lesyk is selling the kit through Western Sales, which has four John Deere outlets in west-central Saskatchewan at Rosetown, Elrose, Biggar and Outlook.
For more information, contact the Rosetown outlet at 306-882-4291 or Lesyk at 306-243-4521.
