[mnjosh]

We bought the combine a couple of years ago and just discovered that there are filler bars on it. Which crops are these suppose to be used in?

 

[gleanerjd]

we only have our filler bars in for low moisture corn, but wheat, oats, and soys we take them out. they were probably left in because i assume you bought the combine in the late winter early spring and the last owner had just gotten done doing corn with it. what kind of l2 is it? ours is a Corn plus

 

[orangeguy]

Concave filler bars or cylinder filler bars?

 

[mnjosh]

The filler bars are on the concave. The previous owner did not grow corn; only small grains and some soybeans. Do you have to use the filler bars on corn? We use to own a Massey Ferguson 550 and never used filler bars on that. Our L2 is a 1980 model standard grain.

 

[snbgleaner]

We use "concave" filler bars in the small grains, especially barley. They help by keeping the grain in closer contact with the cylinder bars and thus helps remove the awns from the barley. We take them out for corn and beans.

 

[dave7060]

We have 3 filler bars in our concave and we use them in corn, soys and wheat, never take em out. Infact, I'm pretty sure my grandpa welded them in.

I would have prefeered if he had took the time to make them bolt in (we made our own).

 

[gleanerman]

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules regarding filler bars, more a function of local harvest conditions and operating style than anything. We have never needed them in wheat, barley, flax and canola. Guess I would consider using them if we encountered hard to thresh wheat variety. Don't know about corn though....

 

[nddan]

The M and L conventional Gleaners had kind of a unique setup. Not fully closed concave like the older conventional and not completely open like rotaries. They kind of have one third closed and two thirds open. They do this with two removable concave bars directly in front of open concave. You could remove one or both concave bars to reduce thresh. We only removed them for edible beans and sunflowers. Otherwise they were left in place. With the concave bars in place you basically have the equivalant of three concave filler bars and we never needed more than that for our hard to thresh crops. Some areas of the country maybe left concave bars out to reduce overall thresh while adding filler ribbons in concave as needed to complete more thresh of heads to prevent tailings overload. Anyway I thought I should point out that two concave bars were installed standard at the factory and may be missing from some machines out there. You could remove and replace of many as I believe 7 concave bars from the earlier Gleaners with the closed concaves to adjust the total thresh you wanted.

 

[mnjosh]

Thanks for the replies. We are going to leave them in for wheat, and take them out for soybeans, not sure about corn. This is our 3rd season with the machine. We think the filler bars caused us some problems during soybeans. I may have the proper part names incorrect, so please bear with me. During the last two seasons in beans, we pushed out some tin on the frame that holds the concave and lower rattle chain. It happened on both sides; one side the first year and the other side last year. We ended up replacing the whole frame this summer. In talking with a Gleaner mechanic, he felt that with those bars in for beans that a green slug went through and pushed out the sides. Without the bars, the slug would have just went through the concave. I hope that all made sense, I'm just the message relayer. One more question, did the L and L2 have any difference in concaves? Apparently the one in ours has been replaced with one out of an L.