[gmguy]

Hey all,

I was wanting to get everyone's opinion if we need to take the effort to pull the cage sweep out of a parts machine, as our new to us 1980 N5 doesnt have it installed. they gutted it all except for the drive assy, and the front rail for the carriage. back rail, carriage, drive chain, and all the arms are gone.

It appears that there are double stacked helicals, and they might be steep pitched as well. only two reverse bars, compared to 4 or more, so that is better.
cage is OK, bars are OK. we have other machines with better and worse bars and cage.

Do you think it will do low yielding dryland winter wheat without building up a big wad of straw outside of the rotor, causing grain loss?

We cleaned out a large wad of straw when we first bought the machine, it was packed all up around the rotor, and there was grain trapped in the straw, so we figured the guy had to be losing quite a bit.

any input appreciated, thanks!

 

[krawler]

I run covers over the sections above the concave with channel helicals. The drier the straw the better it flows through without buildup ontop of the cage.

 

[gmguy]

Which cover? the big one that gaps about an inch and lets grain through, or the ones that completely blank out that area of the cage?

to get a bone stock (although with no reverse bars IIRC) 81 N6 to not plug the cage sweep, dad ended up covering most of the lower part of the thresher side of the cage.

I forgot to mention, ours is double stacked flat bar, no channel.

So green straw is most likely to clump, and dry straw shouldnt clump? what about super dry crispy straw?

Thanks!

 

[krawler]

The ones that blank a whole area of the cage. I cover off the whole row of sections above the concave in the thresher section as the tin surrounding the cage is too close and straw will stick and build up. I find the greener/tougher the straw the more it will build up. If its really dry then seems to flow through better and not build up as much. I had double stacked the flat bar helicals over the thresher section but the channel helicals are definitely a step above that.

 

[runner]

Take out the rails, drive, and anything sweep related that will unbolt. Make a cover for the hole where the drive came through the side. The fewer things for straw to catch on the better. No one runs sweeps around here. (wheat, barley, corn, soybeans, sunflowers.)

 

[fawazhay]

I was worried as you are when I got our N7 home a number of years ago and the sweep had been removed. I thought that since our R50 didn't have one, we would try it before we tried to put one back in. We had an N6 with the sweep. The sweeping being gone was great. No complaints here.