BALCARRES, Sask. – When Keith Stephens went hunting for an extra 860 for his cereal fields, he was also on the lookout for information about installing a modern GPS mapping system on his old 1984 Massey 860.
He found it all in one machine at Dennis McIntosh’s farm near Melfort, Sask.: a 1983 Massey that was only 300 serial numbers up from his own machine and fully set up for GPS monitoring and mapping.
“I definitely wanted a twin for my old 860, but the big attraction with this new combine was the monitoring system,” Stephens said.
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“Dennis put an Ag Leader moisture sensor at the bottom of the clean grain elevator and a yield monitor at the top. They both hook up to the box in the cab so you can use the Outback 360 receiver to map moisture or yield.”
Stephens said the PF3000 monitor box can handle all common GPS systems. It was already set up for Outback and Stephens had just installed Outback on his sprayer the previous year, so he was glad to have full compatibility.
Grain loss monitors
Back at the sieves, McIntosh had long ago decided that two grain loss sensors were not giving him enough information about how much grain was being kicked over. He saw that once the sieves became matted, an operator could go for hours without knowing it.
Better sensor information would let the operator learn the critical speeds and volumes needed to fine tune the combine.
His solution was to install four grain loss sensors, left-to-right, to provide a better picture of what was really going on back there. The four sensors are not individually wired; instead, they send a single signal to the cab. They are all mounted on the same quick-remove bracket for easy maintenance.
There are still two sensors on the straw walkers, which the operator can switch between the straw walkers and the sieves.
Spreader and chopper
Stephens was also impressed with what McIntosh did with the chaff spreader.
“Dennis installed a very aggressive, double rotor chaff spreader,” Stephens said. “But that in itself doesn’t do much good on an 860 combine because there’s a triangular plate that feeds chaff back to the spreader. Most of the chaff drops off the edges of this triangle, down to the axle. It never reaches the rotors. So he built a big rectangular steel plate that goes over top of the original triangle. This feeds the chaff all the way out the back to the spreaders. The chaff spreader has its own independent hydraulic circuit.”
At the tail end of an 860 combine, the horizontal plate vibrates and fractures. McIntosh cured this problem by adding a reinforcing plate that attaches above the original plate.
Stress cracks are a common sight in the sheet metal housing at the back of these combines, caused by chopper hammers that go out of balance. McIntosh added three flat iron bars to strengthen the rotor and keep it from flexing. To keep it running smoothly, he periodically removed the chopper and brought it to a machine shop in Saskatoon for dynamic balancing.
“If you have to re-balance every few years to keep it from shaking itself to pieces, it’s worth the time and money,” Stephens said.
Header hydraulics
Up front, McIntosh added the typical third hydraulic cylinder option needed for the heavier straight cut tables. While it only takes 10 minutes to install or remove the extra cylinder, the problem is that three cylinders create excess demand on the hydraulic system, slowing the lift action too much and causing too much hammering.
“Massey had an accumulator as a factory option for combines with straight cut headers,” Stephens said.
“I have it as a factory option on my 1984 combine, but it’s not big enough. On Dennis’s combine, he did the math to determine how big the accumulator had to be, then he had one custom made specifically for this application. It’s good. You don’t get that hydraulic hammer at all – that extra jerk – when the table stops. It has a valve so you can isolate it from the rest of the system when you just want two cylinders.”
McIntosh also increased the hydraulic flow rate in the table lift circuit by changing the original restricter orifices.
He said attention to detail increases the lifespan of any farm implement.
He noticed that the oil filler spout on the cylinder drive unit of his new 860 had an extra plumbing elbow screwed into the housing.
“With this extension, the oil level is effectively raised by about an inch. The ‘so what’ about this $1 item is that it can save you thousands of dollars.
“On my regular combine, I destroyed a set of chains once long ago because I used my finger to check the oil level. I got a good reading on my finger, so I went combining – for a while.”
He said the oil level is critical because gears and chains run in this oil bath.
“You don’t have to drop the level much before the gears and chains are running dry. That extra little bit of oil you can put in there with the raised elbow is enough to prevent this disaster from happening again. That’s the very first thing I’m copying over to my other 860.”
Stephens said he has also noticed that whenever McIntosh replaced a bearing or a part, he wrote the hours on the new part to provide a forecast of how long each component should last before it needed attention again.
While the MF860 spawned many modifications and kits that were supposed to turn it into an efficient collector of small seeds such as canola and flax, McIntosh said none of that financial outlay was justified.
“All these combines really needed was radical adjustment from what the Massey engineers put in the book. You can double your performance in flax and greatly increase your performance in canola simply by knowing how to tune these combines. And that all comes down to a top-notch monitoring system, same as with any combine.”
