[bigaljack]

On one of my 2388s, i have broken a concave twice, one at a time, bought a new set of single piece concaves, and they ahve been fine, but now i have bent the first grate and it fell off the railing on the right side and was dangling down. What could be causing this? I am running 12 row corn head and i am not running rocks through the machine. anyone ever have a similar problem?

 

[midwest]

Just a guess, could you be running your concaves too far open? Maybe they are getting plugged and trash is gathering on them pushing them down?

 

[jda7271]

I think midwest has a good point. Are your veins set in the slow position by chance allowing the material to slow up and pile up and thus bending a concave or grate? I've only had problems breaking a concave or grate in edible beans (Very Ropy). Are you running a factory set or an after market set? I have the Lowens and they seem to be much heavier than the ones case makes.

 

[doorknob]

Have you ran any tough stemmed material through it? If so and it roped on you, you may well have bent the cage over the grates. Take the bolts loose and push the grates over to the right into its mount. If the bolt holes disapear and you have to pull the grates back over to the left very far, like 3/8" or more, to install the bolts, it's quite likely the cage is sprung. Could be sprung a little on both sides, but the left obviously is quite visible.

Kinda the same thing for the concaves. Check the right side mounting bar. Look rearward toward the bracket that holds the rear of the bar and see what things look like. Sounds like maybe the two problems can be attributed to the cage brace on the right side where the concave mounting bar is fastened. If that brace is cracked or broken, or if the cage bolts have worn the heads off there, it may be letting the cage swell and that's what caused the grates to fall.

Just thinking out loud where I'd start looking. I too had a grate fall off the right side bracket this past summer. The cage on my 1680 is sprung from a few wet slugs that made their way rearward.

 

[midwest]

Years ago, with a standard rotor, I remember knocking the second concave out on a 1480. We were running in real tough soybeans, broke all the bolts and it dropped down on the left side.

 

[bigaljack]

i have never had any thing other than wheat corn and milo go through it. The only thing i can remember going trough it was a gathering chain from a deere row crop head. When you say the cage could be "sprung" what does that mean and how do you fix it?

 

[doorknob]

Quote:i have never had any thing other than wheat corn and milo go through it. The only thing i can remember going trough it was a gathering chain from a deere row crop head. When you say the cage could be "sprung" what does that mean and how do you fix it?

Here's a few pics of my 1680 as it sits right now after last harvest running a few wet slugs through.
The left side above the concaves. Noticed the "wow" in the mounting/stiffener brace.

Another of it.

The transition from concaves to first grate now has a warp in it.

Here's a pic of a stiffener I installed several years ago on the right side of the cage. It had a slight wow in it, so I pulled it over straight with a come-a-long, then bolted the new brace to it.

Here's the first brace on the right side which is where the concaves mounting bar usually mounts. I have my own setup here, but that brace and its condition is important.

Here's the next brace back on the right side. The right side is braced far better than the left side, but......

But,....notice they are'nt bloted to the superstructure very well.

And another of that brace as complete as I can get the camera to take it.

Depending on the abrasive nature of your crops, the cage bolt heads will wear off and the bolts will fall out. I had 3 broken transport vanes as well over the grate area. No foreign objects and I dont have much horsepower. The vanes broke cause a very tight "rope" of wet material worked its way through and the vanes could'nt take the stress. Wet ropes like that are also extremely hard on the rotor drive couplers. Point being, a "sprung" (bent, warped, etc.) cage amplifies the ability of a wet rope to form. From there on, things get broken.

 

[okpanhandle]

Last year during milo harvest someone (I'll be diplomatic and just say it wasn't me

) plugged the rotor with a bunch of johnsonsgrass (herbicide failure plus down milo equals bad time). As the slug moved to the rear of the rotor it pushed the first two grates off the rack on the right side, breaking bolts and warping the cage on the left side. The tabs on the RH side of the grates were bent out of shape and I had to heat them with the torch to bend them back. I have never seen a slug that bad before. I always thought the rotor belt would break before it got that bad.

This winter we replaced the angle iron and spacer/stiffener that the grates bolt to. The cage was still bowed out and that was causing the second grate to sit almost 3/4 of an inch too far left and it was just barely grabbing the rack on the right side. We used a bottle jack (with plenty of bracing) to push the cage back in place. It kept wanting to spring back, so we left the jack there overnight and by morning the steel had enough "memory" to stay where we wanted it. We were able to put the grates back in with little trouble, but there is still a small flat spot on the cage. We don't think it'll cause any trouble, after all, I finished milo harvest with it in worse shape.

If we do have problems, the next step is to replace the left half of the rotor cage. That doesn't sound very fun.

 

[bigaljack]

i sure do appreciate the replies. At least i know what to look for now. I sure wish it was easier to access the right side.... Doesnt help that i am 6'4'' 330lbs.