MORTLACH, Sask. – When Philip Simrose bought his Case IH 1688 combine, the dealer’s mechanic had a few suggestions to improve its operation.
“They’ve got the experience with the machines,” said Simrose, who farms near Mortlach. “They know where they’re going to break so this is what he suggested I do.”
On the original header, the pick-up auger flighting extended past the width of the feeder house on both sides. Simrose said that meant the header would feed narrower than the actual feeder house, which would be like trying to stuff the crop into a narrower opening than necessary.
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“He suggested I should cut back the flighting that distance, so I wasn’t bunching up the crop material further than it needed to be. I don’t know if the company would recommend that, but he had said to do it and it made sense to me, so that’s what I did,” said Simrose.
“I took the cutting torch and cut back the flighting about six or seven inches on each side. Now I’m using the full width of the feeder house.”
Simrose said the modification hasn’t caused the feeder chain to wear unevenly.
“It’s a feeder chain with two chains. I would guess if you had one with three chains and you were trying to stuff it all to the centre, you’d be putting a lot more strain on the third chain,” he said.
“With our older White combine, we had three chains on the feeder chain and the centre chain seemed to stretch more than the outside chains. Then we’d have problems with that.”
The mechanic also suggested doing something about the bolts that hold the metal on the combine’s return elevator.
“I guess they’ve had some trouble with the metal breaking on the return housing. The bearing on the cross auger that takes your return grain into your rotor is on the outside,” Simrose said.
“There’s a push with the flighting and it would tend to push out. You didn’t have strength on the outside housing, so all the strain is on the outside and apparently it would break loose there.”
The mechanic suggested Simrose replace the bolts with ready rod where the elevator enters the cross auger at the top of the return elevator.
“Now I’m holding it in with the ready rods to the inside member, so it gives it a little extra strength,” he said.
“Each ready rod, you have four nuts on it. With the two nuts on each end, that’s enough. It’s like double nutting something. I’ve never had that problem because I changed it.”
Simrose said the bolts on a combine’s drive wheels will break loose if they’re not kept tight, which is what happened to him a few years ago.
Before they do that, however, they will elongate the holes and start cracks.
“The first time, I spent a pile of money buying a brand new rim. To save the second time, the neighbour had the same thing happen with a wheel on his tractor. Someone had suggested he buy a spacer for dual tires from his John Deere dealer and weld it to the rim. That would save him from having to buy a new rim,” said Simrose.
“I looked at the spacing on the holes and it looked to be about the same as what I had on mine. I called the John Deere dealer, got the spacer and welded it on. It was about $100 for the spacer compared to I think over $1,000 for the rim.”
While his combine is a Case IH, Simrose said the John Deere spacer worked fine.
“The tires are pretty standard, so I assume the rims are pretty standard, too. The one rim I got from the wrecker was for a New Holland TR combine. So it seems the rims are quite interchangeable between combines.”
Simrose said farmers might be able to weld the cracks in the rims, but it’s difficult to fill in the holes with weld once they’re elongated.
“I don’t think I’d do that, but with this doughnut, it works pretty good.”
The spacer is about three-quarters of an inch thick. While he had to replace most of the bolts, the originals would have still been long enough to work, even with the spacer.
“The best thing to do is watch your bolts and keep them tight,” he said.
“But if it does happen, that’s one way you can take care of it. It’s worked good for me ever since – probably five years now without any more trouble.”
