CIH 1660 - I am gonna cave in....

Dave H (MI)

Well-known Member
...and have the dealer send a guy out and go over the combine with me. Still fires up just fine and sounds good. Cannot for the life of me resolve the lights. No fuses blown that I can find, some lights work and others don't. Really hard to access some places safely when working alone. Today I fired it up and decided to see what kind of RPM's I could get out of the fan and rotor as previously discussed. Operate the switches and nothing happens. Don't know if I am forgetting to do something or what is wrong. Noticed the oil pressure pegged all the way over and the battery gauge not doing anything. Both worked before! Shut her down and went back and made sure the rotor speed lever was not in neutral...it wasn't but I worked it anyway. Fired it back up, no rotor or feeder. Did it a couple more times and they came on. Now the battery gauge works but not the oil. Run the rotor up and started getting a lot of lights and beeping. Reset but they come back on. Shut her down again. Sat there and thought about it long and hard and, honestly? I want someone who knows their CIH combines to come down here and go over it with me. Never did that before but this one just makes me feel like I am out of my depth.

I did pull the panel off the cab side for electrical access. No wires are chewed under there at all. Insulation has been chewed and there are a few rat droppings...but not many.

The other thing troubling me is that the fan and rotor speed controls in the overhead console do nothing. The only speed control I have for these is the throttle. Obviously, this is not right. Time to call in the cavalry.
 
The fan and rotor speed rocker switches on mine are down on the side console. The fan and rotor knobs over head are for setting the warning system once you have the speeds set where you want them.
 
Well...that's a relief. I am gonna have to get the manual back out. Currently I have Mrs Dave reading it because I need someone on the ground while I am at the controls. I did check the rotor and fan speeds...

With the lever in LOW I had 320 max rotor and dangit I forgot the fan speed.

With the side lever pushed to high I had 640 rotor and 830-840 on the fan.

I think these are correct or very close. I did not use the fast and slow on the side console. Need to revisit the manual for how those work now that you reminded me about the dials up above. This is a problem with a complex machine sitting outside and rain all the time. It can take a week to get back to it sometimes and I forget stuff. Anyway...doing my best and hoping I can work a lot of it out and save on the service guys time. Gauges all came on except the oil gauge is clearly messed up.
 
Close by the farm...well sort of, not so close to here though. I am kind of holding out on him for operational advice when I actually get on the field. For repairs that may need doing that he may or may not have known about...that is getting a little dicey so talking to my dealer service guy on that. I did the same thing with the planter...did all the work myself and just used the dealership for consulting. Then when I got it on the field and things weren't quite right I just called the seller and told him what a great planter it was and.."hey, what do you do when it won't..." and he straightened me out on that.

No fuss, no muss, no problems. Timing is everything.
 
Sounds like a bad ground connection to the cab to me.

Find the grounding strap and loosen and tighten the bolts holding the strap to see what happens.

You can run the fan speed to as high as 1100 or so and the rotor to 800 or so with the push buttons on the console. Just hold the button up or down to achieve the speeds you want.


Gary
 
I've been having a little trouble with the plug on the the motor that adjusts the rotor speed on my 1480. If the speed won't change I have to go in the engine compartment and wiggle the connector and then it works.
 
So are you saying the rotor and feeder won't come on at all?? Do you have any other hydraulic functions that work?? If not it's probably a bad oil sending unit. This will disable hydraulics. If you have an International engine the sender will be staring at you on the left hand side of the engine as you come up the steps to the platform. It's a round cylinder. You can splice the wires going to it together to temporarily see if that is your problem.

If your rotor or fan won't adjust it could be several things. A bad adjustor motor, adjusting threads dirty or frozen, problem with your limits switches, no power to motor.
 
Well it's kind of odd, Matt. When I originally fired up the rotor/fan and feeder a couple weeks back they both came right on...no issues. You flip the toggle for either and it worked fine. Yesterday I fired it up again to run the tests you had suggested and when I operated the toggle switches nothing happened on either function. Now this is a simple but complicated machine and I have never used one...so my first assumption is that I have forgotten to do something. I sat there a good long while and looked at everything. Nope...nothing forgotten. Tried a few times nothing. Then one time I tried and both functions worked. Rotor started turning and the feeder started. Played with it a little bit, had a lot of flashing lights and beeping. Got me a little freaked out so I shut it down. Did a little research/post and Bob B pointed out that I had indeed gotten mixed up...hence the lights and beeping. I was trying to use the overhead controls to control speed and that ain't right! So I went out a second time and fired her up and the darned things would not come on again when I used the toggles.

So here is what I did. I shut her down and went to the right side and looked at the rotor speed. It was in HIGH. I moved it to LOW and fired up the combine. Rotor and feeder now worked. I did this again but moved it to HIGH. Both worked. I am not sure why this would have any effect on the feeder though. Scratching my head here. I will keep playing with it until I see a pattern that makes sense. Then I will figure out how to fix it. If I can get it to work consistently and am comfortable with the overhead speed settings then I will call of CIH and keep at it on my own.

I am just getting a little panicky because of all the talk about early fall, me not having found a head yet, and all the work I cannot get done. Believe it or not, by this time next year I will know this combine like the back of me hand!
 
I like IaGary's idea about a ground. My 1660 has it's own cab feed wires all the way from the batteries. Smaller cable, like maybe a #4?, red and black, go to posts on the lower left side of the cab, under the step/cover that's over the hyd. valve.
I was doing some work on the hyd. last year and discovered them down in there. There was some corrosion on the + terminal, and it was unprotected. So I cleaned and lubed it, and put a boot on it.
 
I will find the ground and give it a try. More rain right now so I had to close it all up. We are back in that cycle again. This weather thing is getting to be just one big nightmare. tomorrow is another day.
 
Figure out what size would work and see if you can find a hoop-style greenhouse frame to buy cheap that it will fit in - not the greatest building, but keeps the rain off, at least cost.
 
The only function of the rotor and fan knobs on the ceiling is to set the speed at which the low speed alarms come on. If you want the rotor at 700 RPM with the machine wide open and empty adjust the rotor speed (with the rocker switch) to around 550-600 RPM. Then adjust the rotor knob until the rotor low speed alarm comes on. Then back it off just a tad until alarm goes off. Then adjust rotor speed to 700 RPM. Setting the alarm will give you a guide as to when you're running too much material through it and running the risk of choking it up. Does this make sense?
 
I'm OK there. Good idea, though. The reason the combine is outside is because it is parked on the driveway of my (rapidly becoming suburban) home. That is where my shop is and the shop is where the tools is. Combine will not fit in the shop. Combine is almost as big as the garage the shop is in...LOL!

Out at the farm where the combine is soon to live there is a barn being built. I am on a waiting list for the contractor. Never thought the day would come but I just don't have it in me to build the thing myself. Too many projects. The barn package was ordered with the combine in mind as it is the tallest and widest thing that will go in it. So hopefully, it will be inside before winter. If not I will try to rent space in another barn. Nice machine, don't want it outside.
 
Absolutely. When/if the rotor gets so much material in it that it starts to choke and the RPM's fall to the alarm setting it will then beep/flash and let me know I need to pull back on the hydro and slow down the forward momentum while the rotor catches up, right? If it keeps happening I know to slow down.

Just out of curiosity, is the fan setting just for detecting a malfunction in the fan or is there a way to overload that also? Can't think of anything from looking at the diagrams but good to ask I think.
 

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