issues with flexible grain head in oats?

We were looking at a Gleaner M2 combine today. It has a 15' flexible grain head. The owner told us that he had experienced difficulty getting oats to feed up the head and into the throat properly if the oats had a lot of green foxtail or other green weeds growing up through it. He said that it was because the distance between the knives and the auger and fingers was too great, and the green stuff just builds up in a wad in front of the fingers and then gets rammed through all at once when the wad gets big enough, resulting in a plug somewhere downstream in the machine. Because it's not possible to reverse the flow of material through the machine, a plug-up meant stopping and unplugging by hand. He also said that this was a design problem with all flexible heads, be they for AC, IH, JD, or anyone. He had tried to find a rigid head, but said that they are pretty hard to come by these days for that size machine.

Is this a common problem with flex heads in ripe yet weedy oats or wheat? He indicated that with rye, the problems weren't nearly as bad, because rye is so much taller and spans the distance in question much more easily. Is this specifically a Gleaner issue, or is it really something that all flex heads do, regardless of make?

Thank you.

I never had any trouble with a Gleaner and a grain head. Now I have a CaseIH rotary with a flex head, and yes, it can be trouble. I have made every adjustment possible to the head, and combine, and it has helped. I looked a little for a rigid head for this machine. There are few to be found, and they're out in Kansas! What I really miss is I had the rigid grain head on the Gleaner set up for automatic height control. Now I have to have the flex part locked up, thereby requiring manual control.

You are locking the flex head up, so it is rigid?

That still leaves a bit of extra space and ripple more than a rigid head would be.

You can play some tricks, like the 2 inch suction hose on the top back of the sickle, so any beans or small grains tumble over the hose and the reel swats the butt of the grain into the auger.

Or put some flaps on the reel maybe 10 or so spaced out, to help flop the grain into the auger.

I like the suction hose, take 5 or 6 guard bolts out, and use 2 inch conduit clamps to hold the hose down. It might not make a perfect world, but it does make the day a lot better.

Paul

Lock the head up and set the reel in the right position and that head will feed, ran one for 23 years before I got the rotary, did lots of oats, short and tall, it would feed.

I've got a 922 flex head on my JD 9500. I tie it down for wheat and milo and never have had a feeding issue. I was having some issues with it in flex (losing beans) so I replaced the stainless concave pieces between the sickle and cross auger. That was neither fun nor cheap, but it solved the issue.

You have to find a sweet spot with each machine. If I have a weedy spot and try to cut just the heads it doesn't feed. You have to give it enough to feed through but not overwhelm it with roughage. Lower your table a tad and don't creep through too slow.

Your problem can be minimized by locking the flex bar up to rigid position. Yes, gleaners do have poor headers, especially for beans, the flex head has those metal sheets that often make a bump to get up and over. Yes, auger is often a few inches too far back. Research the hose mod. that can be done by putting a hose behind sickle to tip the crop over and into the auger/reel. John deere headers are supposedly better feeding, particularly for beans. Yours can be made to work ok though.

he doesn't have the reel set right for what he is cutting, we have a 313 and it will inhale oats,even when there down and the head is floating, friend bought a 4435 jd and was having trouble with the head feeding soybeans,the way it was set he may as well had a rigid head with a flat bat reel,after the timing was adjusted and the position changed he could run in 2 gear in 35 bu beans and it feed perfect