Concave cover plates do work!

My Dominator is finally earning its keep.We have had two weeks of on and off rain so I decided to fiddle with my Dominator a little so maybe I could run it in grain sorghum when it finally dries off(still like around 200 acres).I decided to pull the concave out and put the cover plates back on the concave just like Claas had them. When I got the concave out it turns out the leading edges on all the concave bars were rounded off a lot worse than I thought they were.I spent all day one day welding up the leading edge on all the bars and grinding them back to a square edge keeping everything straight with a machined straight edge to go by.I put the five cover plates back on the concave with the levers on the side to engage and disengage them and it really paid off.We started back Thursday and it is a totally different combine.Welding up the concave made a huge difference in the threshing and now I am able to run my cyl as slow as it will go and completely thresh all the heads.When I started back it was still loosing a few pods of seed out the back so I closed all five cover plates and the pods disappeared but it started cracking the grain pretty bad.I then left the front two closed and opened the three rear ones and it is doing a beautiful job now with hardly any cracked grain and virtuall nothing giong out the back.I know some of you will think I am crazy for welding up my concave instead of buying a new one but I didnt want to spend big money on a new concave until I knew it would fix the combines problem.I used a regular welding wire so we will see how long it lasts.If you are having threshing problems take a close look at your concave to see if the edges are rounded any and that may be your problem.I checked this one and didnt think that little bit of wear would make that much difference but boy was I wrong.Rain is forecasted for us again today but when we start back I am going to start snapping some pics again.The row crop heads are really earning thier keep in sorghum this year.Some places in the fields are 100% down and the heads are doing a beautiful job of picking it up off the ground.

Glad to hear you found the problem. I did not mention the concave because I thought you had just installed it last summer. I bet that you found the most wear was in the first few bars on the concave??? As for welding them. I have done it several times if the concave is not bent. It seems like the JD concaves will have some bend in them if they are worn much. When I welded them up I did the opposite of you on welding material. I used HARD Surfacing rods. They where a bear to get ground down flat but they lasted for years after I did it.

I bet that a concave for yours is not cheap either. With few if any after market parts to keep Claus down in price I bet they are HIGH in price.

The more main line brands have several options so they have actually gotten cheap over the years.

The one I remember best is sickle bars for the grain heads. I can remember giving $350-400 for a 20 footer in the early 1980s. Then the aftermarket business took off an they where half price. JD sold very few of them. So they drop the price on them. They are cheaper today than they where 30 years ago.

Good luck with your harvest. We have been done for awhile now. Darn glad too. Snow and single digit temperatures make for tough harvest conditions. Used to have to fight them when still picking corn. I can remember being happy if we where done by Christmas.

Glad to hear you got her working Haley. Makes me wonder if i should have put the cover plates back in my concave when we got it fixed this past summer, they were broken so i removed them all, having said that i've never used them since we stopped growing barley years ago.

I got good news about my 106 too... blew the hydrostatic motor with 40 acres left to combine back in oct, after lots of phone calls, have found a place that can get parts (from Germany) and will have it fixed soon. Motor is obsolete from both Claas and Sauer, but someone somewhere in germany had part still.

I have several set of concaves for my machines all welded up and ready to install when I need them glad to hear things are working well,, I love it when a plan comes together!!
cnt

are the stalks dry yet in your area,reason i asked we had held off cutting ours because of late planting and early frost ,heads filled out good but were 40% green at the first killing frost, while waiting on the heads to dry a couple hard winds had broken over some of the heads at the stalk joint ,i assumed it was the result of freezing,when we cut it low enough to get them the grain it would get wet from moisture in the stalks even though it had been a month since the freeze, opted to leave the fallen heads and go ahead and cut it to avoid further losses ,it was also harder than normal to thresh the heads clean

Thats exactly the situation we are in.We got an early frost that killed the plant before the grain actually dried down.The stalk is brown on the outside but it is a LONG way from dry.I have always compared cutting sorghum to cutting green sugar cane and this year is the worst year ever for us.The grain moisture is running 20% and the stalks are so sapped up you can literally twist them and make water run out.If you really want to see what a combine is made of just try cutting this stuff on the ground and you will have your answer real quick.Getting a combine to take it in without stopping up the cyl can be a challenge sometimes.My combines are constantly "talking" to me all day long with that famous clyinder growl just to let me know that I am pushing its limits!

oj, Does yours run the Sundstrand motor or Linde?I found a place on E Bay that rebuilds them and the guy said when I called him that the ones for Claas was not a problem to get parts for.Look up "Hydrostatic transmission services".

JD,You are right.The first bar was worn down over 1/4" compared to the next three.The last three also were rounded more than the middle ones.I came very close to building up mine with Hard surface rods but I knew that I was giong to be on a tight time frame getting it back together before it dried off enough to run again.I built up an idler for my dozer several years ago with hard surface rods and it took FOREVER to grind it back down.The last concave I priced from Claas for the Fords was over $1600 and thats been probably 6 years ago.I have been real lucky to have all the other Fords for parts and concaves for them havent been a problem yet.The thing that scares me now is that I have virtually no spare parts for the 76 which may cost me more in the long run than the combine is worth.

apparently i have a odd ball sauer hydrostatic (they are part of Danfoss now)... the linde one is the common one by all accounts.