Joined: Jan 2010 Gender: Male Posts: 19 Location: Okeene, OK
936D « Thread Started on Jan 8, 2010, 11:08pm »
Is it common for early 2000's model 936D to break the sickle bar quite a bit more than would be expected? I put on a brand new wobble box before harvest and the cutter bar broke the first day, second day, and not the third only because it rained.
Are you cutting with the furrow or across the furrow? We had some issues this year the with the crop laying to the south, and guys were cutting east and west across the furrow and breaking sicles. I guess one guy talked to a tech, and hitting the stubble row all at once was loading the sicle to heavy and breaking it.
All of the above are good points and should be checked. We have found the following situation to give problems also: There is a fair amount of cutterbar that extends beyond the transport wheel. If header is pulled in transport position and right-side wheel hits chuck-hole or depression it will jar header enough to make far end of header bounce and spring cutter bar a bit--enough so sickle binds when moving.
We have run these heads for 5-6 years, and in my opinion the fact that they don't have double knife drive is their biggest downfall. I know there are hundreds of farmers that have put thousands of acres on them and never broke a sickle (I believe them and am happy for them) but we are not among them, sorry to say. Over the years, we have bought at least 50 sickle-splice kits, and while breakage was probably caused by the afore-mentioned problems, I don't think we would have broken 1 sickle if they had double-knife drive. And would you believe on the new MacDon Flex Draper ($75000+) or Rigid Draper MacDon doesn't even OFFER (as an option) double-knife drive on their 36' or smaller headers. I know that I am not the only one that feels so strongly about double-knife drive--there's a thread on here or AgTalk where farmers refuse to buy the new MacDon for that reason. I think the 936D is a great head for the money other than sickle problems, and they aren't the best in pulse crops due to narrow canvas and small throat opening.
And would you believe on the new MacDon Flex Draper ($75000+) or Rigid Draper MacDon doesn't even OFFER (as an option) double-knife drive on their 36' or smaller headers. I know that I am not the only one that feels so strongly about double-knife drive
Unless things have changed you can get DKD on any size D60D rigid header. I would not buy a 30' or greater without DKD. So I'm a fan of DKD as well.
Hi, Don And here I thought I was up late! I stand corrected--double knife drive is available on MacDon rigid drapers. Let me offer my feeble excuse for saying otherwise.
I was driving down the road one day, a friend called and said "Well, you'll never be buying a 35' MacDon FD because they don't offer DKD--it says so on a thread on Combine Forum." I absolutely couldn't believe that you could spend $75k plus and not even have it as an option, so I immediately called Degelman Industries (some other name now) in Minot, ND, (they are the distributor for all MacDon heads that come into US) asked for sales mgr, asked about DKD. He didn't even know off the top of his head, looked it up and said it wasn't available on 35' (or smaller) on either the flex or rigid. And believe he told me it was $6000 extra on the 40' flex.
I am a staunch believer in DKD but can't afford MacDon FD right now (and doesn't sound like a guy even wants the new JD head) so we will struggle along with our 936D's.
Always appreciate your infinite wisdom and level-headed responses. Just curious--didn't I used to see a number in the 4000's for posts by your name?
Always appreciate your infinite wisdom and level-headed responses. Just curious--didn't I used to see a number in the 4000's for posts by your name?
Ah, warm fuzzies. Thank you. Yes, you did. For a reason that I don't understand, you can change your own post count under modify profile when you are logged in. I decided to reduce mine, the post count kinda portrait me as one of those "I farm a jillion acres, so there" attitudes and I do not care for that on myself. By the way, as a mod I can also modify your post count, which I will do, for a short period, or you can change it back, you have 38, one of those just to prove I can do it deals. We should start a thread on DKD opinions and a poll, it gets kicked around quite a bit. OK, so I will!
At least I know now that I wasn't losing my mind when I saw 4000+ posts by your name. I still don't know entirely how this site works, but I figured from the get-go that combiness, yourself, and Alex were moderators. Is each moderator assigned a different time slot? I lost my password and had an answer in 10 seconds.
I'll have to chime in on the double-knife thing; it's one thing that I get pretty opinionated about.
At least I know now that I wasn't losing my mind when I saw 4000+ posts by your name. I still don't know entirely how this site works, but I figured from the get-go that combiness, yourself, and Alex were moderators. Is each moderator assigned a different time slot? I lost my password and had an answer in 10 seconds.
Nope no mind loss...so far. No time slots for mods but this may surprise you: http://combineforums.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=members&view=staff You have to be logged in to see that. Those are all staff. I don't know about those other guys but I get tried of cashing those checks Alex sends out every month.
Was the wobble box timed properly when you put it together. I once had a dealer put it together wrong and the wobble box was trying to run the knife about 15 degrees from parallel. Usually the white plastic bush on the drive head is worn if you have knife trouble.
In our case, after breaking that many sickles, we did check timing. I don't think there's any great mystery in why they break (some guys never break any). All of the things listed below have been mentioned but to summarize:
~timing ~worn guards and/or sections ~bent (even slightly) cutterbar ~tough cutting conditions (flax at anytime or damp, tough straw of any crop--day or night
DKD may not be a cure-all but would certainly help.
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