[cihman]

I have a '96 2188 that I purchased this year, and it worked well for all of wheat harvest and about half of milo harvest. I have been cutting 100-110 bushel milo at 5mph, but starting yesterday, the return grain elevator started plugging, even when slowing to 3mph. There seems to be a lot of grain coming out of the bottom side of the elevator, but the auger on top seems to be working fine. Has anyone come across this problem before?

 

[olblue]

Did you pull the auger out to make sure the flighting was OK? We had this problem happen a couple weeks back and found that the flighting had folded back and the returns were just recycling in the elevator without actually moving over to the rotor.

 

[cihman]

Yes, that was actually one of the first things we checked. Flighting seemed to be quite thick across the whole auger. Any other suggestions?

 

[combiness]

If not the auger, then check the elevator itself. I've seen such plug from not only just wear, but where rodents had entered, and chewed off the edges of the paddles all the way up or down one whole side.

Yes, that caused much grief.

 

[olblue]

Did something change in the harvest conditions?

Maybe you've got other problems going on like your fan speed has dropped and the sieves are overloaded now.

 

[wildcatwheatfarmer]

This may sound elementary, so if I am off base, just disregard. In your last post you mention you closed the sieves way down...did you happen to close the bottom sieve? If so that will most certainly cause your return problem.. everything that flows off the back of the bottom sieve (due to it being to closed) is dumped into the return.
Try to run the bottom as wide open as you can tolerate while doing the majority of the cleaning with the chaffer (top sieve) and fan.

 

[cihman]

The elevator itsself looks good. We even dropped the chain and all of the paddles look good. The flighting between the top and the bottom levels of the elevator is not worn through anywhere. We thought that could be a problem at first if grain was fallling through to the bottom. Haven't checked the fan, but we did close the sieves way down, so I'm not thinking the sieves are overloaded. The mechanic is coming out this afternoon, will let you know what he finds out. Thanks for the input so far.

 

[aussiemech]

i think wildcat hit the nail on the head