N h 489 reel speed

I picked up a n h 489 haybine at a spring auction, I was brought up on and used the ole 479 for as long as I can remember. The reel speed is considerably slower on the 489. Checked the belt tension, seems as tight or tighter than my 479. A neighbor told me he heard of an adjustment that can be made to speed up the reel, Just didn't know how. Has anyone out there in haybine space heard of this ?

Thanks

Look over on the right side where the reel drive belt is. The smaller drive pulley bolts together. Take the belt tension spring off/loose. Then to go faster you need the effective diameter of the drive pulley to be larger. So the drive pulley has spacers that change the width of the pulley. Thus making the effective diameter change. You will want to remove spacers from the middle/inside of the pulley and move them to the outside. Make sure you do not pinch the drive belt when you tighten the bolts that hold the pulley together. This makes the belt ride higher in the "V" grove on the pulley making it have a larger effective diameter.

I just did my 489. Mine has a screw on outer sheave on the drive pulley after you take the 6 bolts out and one bolt holds a steel plate with a pin welded to it that goes in a hole to keep them from unscrewing. I removed the whole assembly first by driving the pin out of the pulley mainshaft and then driving the mainshaft out. This one had never been adjusted. Ive only done two but both needed heat to unscrew. The one I just did I also stuck a candle to the threads after heating good. How wax always slips in there. I always set my reel speed to a little faster than ground speed. You may have to flip your outer pulley. There are some indents on one side of outer sheave. I believe I put them toward the belt and turned it in till I could see around 4 theads on the outside end. I use an 801 with 5 speed in 3rd or 4th. I think they are pretty hard to reset after you button it up, theres just no where to grab that outer half of the sheave. Heres some pics.

I forgot to mention that you need to make sure your chains and sprockets are lined up and the belt pulleys are too. The first 489 we owned it got a lot of header sideplay ater a while and the counterweights on the blade arm started hitting the BIG carriage bolt opposite the arm and resulted in the arm splines being worn. You can take the side play out by using washers on the header hold bars and also if yours has a rectangle shaped slide thing in the middle of the very bottom you can take some wear out there. I flipped that around where dirt wouldnt go in it. The less sideplay you have the less wear on the holding mechanism of the header. If you take the belt pulleys off lay them flat and give them a little oil. I also drilled one 1/16" holes in each thin outer wall of the chevron roll bearings to grease them with a needlepoint grease fitting. I also did that to a Vermeer 504H. Paint the holes with white paint so you can find them easy. I have never changed a roll bearing. Paint the whole wobbledrive, especially the arm and plate under it, with white paint so you can spot an oil leak easy. I also drilled and tapped a hole to install a drip oiler above the chain.