My little Dominator REALLY suprised me!

It WILL run a 20' head in 60bpa wheat.We are nearing the end of a muddy wheat harvest and the 642 that my father runs decided it was done for now.The transmission is destroyed in it due to a freak mechanical issue.The parking brake drum runs off of the end of the trans main shaft and aparrently either mud or weeds partially applied it.Before my father caught it the drum was scalding hot and destroyed the seal right behind it.Most of the oil ran out and the bearing right behind it came apart and wound up in the trans gears.Pop said he noticed it pulling a little hard before it failed but thought it was just the soft ground we were on.I do have another trans but it is at least a two day job to change it(both big tires and final drives need to come off to change it).I had the Dominator sitting ready but did not have a smaller head for it so I decided to try the 20' head on it that I rebuilt last year.I figured we only like about 50 acres so if he only could use half of the 20' he would still be helping.To my suprise the little 76 handles the big head with ease and is doing a GREAT job.This is the first time I have ran it in wheat and to tell you the truth the Dominator is VERY closely matched to the 642 in wheat.THe extra 30 horses from the Mercedes keeps it chugging right along when the 642 runs out of power in really thick wheat.This is one case where it was real nice to have a spare combine just sitting when I really needed it.

Great pics and nice looking wheat. Harvest is a couple weeks out here, most wheat looks poor, we had a rough winter and cool dry spring. Have had good moisture the last 2 weeks and corn and beans are off to a nice start

Haley, just curious on why you are running so much straw through the combine.

A lot of the heads have already fallen over and we are having to run low to cut just under them.

Haley, sounds like you have another interesting harvest underway!! I really do love it when a plan comes together!! thank you for the update and please keep the pics/stories coming I really enjoy them, best Wheat I ever cut ran 88 bushel average on 450 acres, all of my machines have the largest header for that machine, I was also very impressed at the job they did, I did not move that fast but with three machine running it did not take that long and they saved almost every kernel with no damage under 1% dock, not bad for 45 plus year old machines, and I saved 10,000 by not having the custom cutter I had used before that who cared only about acres and not how much he threw over and cracked, the year before he cost me 1.00 a bushel dock, I sold almost 40,000 bushels that year so its not hard to figure what he cost me plus his bill!! the pic above is from that harvest, we sold straw that year so we took as much as we could handle thru the machines
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glad she is running well for you Haley... lets hope for no more breakdowns...