When hobby farming with antiques it seems as if there is never a shortage of little petty things that need repair.
We bought this late 45 last winter and did a motor swap among other things to brush off the 30 years of barn dust. We cut a few acres of wheat and beans with it last year. All in all it treated us really well.
At times it could be a little sluggish in feeding soybeans. The cylinder bars were less than 20% so we had them rebuilt late last fall. We finally got around to installing them today. The guy supposedly built them to factory specs but they were so tall that I actually had to get the angle grinder out and touch them up to be able to get them to clear the angle iron brace in the top of the threshing chamber. It ended up being quite the task with all of the fit/finish required along with straightening one of the slats that hold the bars.
The shoe had also begun to "click" at the very end of soybean harvest last fall. We decided it was best to address it now rather than after we tossed the Chaffer and sieve out the back of the combine. All of the rubber bushings/isolators (16 of them) were still available from mother Deere at $10 each. They were a real joy to install. Those rubber parts always have a way of seeming to be just a little bit too large for an easy fit. There was a multitude of sweating and grunting upon reassembly but we got it done!
We also decided last fall that the unloading auger was just too short for comfort even for dumping in gravity boxes (the scene was sort of like a Shetland stud pony chasing a Belgian mare). We had 3 ft added on to the auger at the local welding shop which should be a huge improvement over the original 7 feet. I guess we will attempt to reinstall the lengthened auger tomorrow after church. I'll attempt to post a before and after photo of the auger over top of one of our old wagons.
Even with preparing for a late October soybean harvest in May in sure the 47 year old 45 will have some surprises for us at go time. The good news is that we are all still going to have food on the table even if we don't harvest a single bushel of grain.
The combine forum is a little slow this time of year. I thought you fellas might appreciate a little spring combine chit-chat.
We bought this late 45 last winter and did a motor swap among other things to brush off the 30 years of barn dust. We cut a few acres of wheat and beans with it last year. All in all it treated us really well.
At times it could be a little sluggish in feeding soybeans. The cylinder bars were less than 20% so we had them rebuilt late last fall. We finally got around to installing them today. The guy supposedly built them to factory specs but they were so tall that I actually had to get the angle grinder out and touch them up to be able to get them to clear the angle iron brace in the top of the threshing chamber. It ended up being quite the task with all of the fit/finish required along with straightening one of the slats that hold the bars.
The shoe had also begun to "click" at the very end of soybean harvest last fall. We decided it was best to address it now rather than after we tossed the Chaffer and sieve out the back of the combine. All of the rubber bushings/isolators (16 of them) were still available from mother Deere at $10 each. They were a real joy to install. Those rubber parts always have a way of seeming to be just a little bit too large for an easy fit. There was a multitude of sweating and grunting upon reassembly but we got it done!
We also decided last fall that the unloading auger was just too short for comfort even for dumping in gravity boxes (the scene was sort of like a Shetland stud pony chasing a Belgian mare). We had 3 ft added on to the auger at the local welding shop which should be a huge improvement over the original 7 feet. I guess we will attempt to reinstall the lengthened auger tomorrow after church. I'll attempt to post a before and after photo of the auger over top of one of our old wagons.
Even with preparing for a late October soybean harvest in May in sure the 47 year old 45 will have some surprises for us at go time. The good news is that we are all still going to have food on the table even if we don't harvest a single bushel of grain.
The combine forum is a little slow this time of year. I thought you fellas might appreciate a little spring combine chit-chat.
