We bought a new 8200 25 foot flex last year We had nothing but problems with the satblizer link comming lose dealer installeds a second helped a bit but still the guads are moving. It cuts great when the are tight but when it comes lose I won't cut ****!!! it has actually shook so bad that it cracked the cutterbar!!! now all the pivot joints are lose thank god it's still on warrenty..... but still wtf.....any ideas or mods please
WilsonFarms
8200
Also have an 8200 25 ft. Shakes itself apart too. Three yrs. old. Broke cutterbar, skid pad last year. On its third drive box and stabilizer shaft. Either three boxes are out of time or there is another problem. Dealer has come twice and rebuilt head, no cost to me. Shake is in time with sickle. Cab mirrors are constantly shaking and you can feel it in cab. AGCO said they will help either rebuild it or replace it (problems are well documented). Want to replace but with what? Are 30 ft. heads with two stabilizers better? Would rather stay with 25 ft. or go with draper head(too pricey). Love my R65. But the 8200 has got to go.
Also have an 8200 25 ft. Shakes itself apart too. Three yrs. old. Broke cutterbar, skid pad last year. On its third drive box and stabilizer shaft. Either three boxes are out of time or there is another problem. Dealer has come twice and rebuilt head, no cost to me. Shake is in time with sickle. Cab mirrors are constantly shaking and you can feel it in cab. AGCO said they will help either rebuild it or replace it (problems are well documented). Want to replace but with what? Are 30 ft. heads with two stabilizers better? Would rather stay with 25 ft. or go with draper head(too pricey). Love my R65. But the 8200 has got to go.
We only have 30' and larger 8200s which have two stabilizers. We had one break skid plate and cutterbar. It was earlier 8200 with SCH which did not have roller guides. We found similar stresses on the 800 or 8000 with SCH that did not have roller guides. There are very few SCHs around any more without the roller guides. Even on 30' and larger head you want to check the two stabilizers to see everything is tight and the tie rod ends are in sinc and one isn't working against the other. A key point to build strong assembly between skid plate and cutter bar are the two bolts that secure cutterbar to box mount. If them two bolts work loose from the excess load you will soon have more trouble. We haven't failed any SCH boxes yet but will be looking for the timeing marks as mentioned above.
Wilson Farms
We have 2 25' 8200 heads , both work very well , But the first thing we do when anything is delivered is go over them from end to end , top to bottom. ( I know the dealers are supposed to , but it is hard to believe how many things you will find out of spec)
Most Dealers usually try to make sure the PDI etc is done correctly but most don't actually get out and run these things, we find that we get the service manual from the dealer and re do the PDI ourselves and make sure everything is set as per the book, The timing marks are noted in the service manual as part of the PDI , obviously your dealer over looked that section , which we find happens more often than it should.
Your stabilizer arms will have a threaded swivel ball on each end , it doesn't take much wear in the ends to make it shake, we keep a 1/2 dozen ends and at least 1 complete stabilizer rod in the tool box of the heads.
Another thing to check is the RPM of your drive , if you run them too fast they act like you have mentioned. I forgot to lock up our variable speed header drive once when on the flex head , and I ended up spending some $ to fix the knife up.
We have 2 25' 8200 heads , both work very well , But the first thing we do when anything is delivered is go over them from end to end , top to bottom. ( I know the dealers are supposed to , but it is hard to believe how many things you will find out of spec)
Most Dealers usually try to make sure the PDI etc is done correctly but most don't actually get out and run these things, we find that we get the service manual from the dealer and re do the PDI ourselves and make sure everything is set as per the book, The timing marks are noted in the service manual as part of the PDI , obviously your dealer over looked that section , which we find happens more often than it should.
Your stabilizer arms will have a threaded swivel ball on each end , it doesn't take much wear in the ends to make it shake, we keep a 1/2 dozen ends and at least 1 complete stabilizer rod in the tool box of the heads.
Another thing to check is the RPM of your drive , if you run them too fast they act like you have mentioned. I forgot to lock up our variable speed header drive once when on the flex head , and I ended up spending some $ to fix the knife up.
The photos showing these mods seem have gone missing at google but I might be able to round up Rolf to put the relevant photos to this article up again for illustration purposes.
Most of this was written some time ago on this forum and is copied to this thread.
On the stabilizer bar for the flex front [ flex header ] we had a heck of a lot of problems initially as the stabilizers broke up, ball joints on the stabilizer arm broke or wore out in a few hundred acres, the bushes on the stabiliser pivot shaft broke up, the stabiliser pivot shaft lasted about 200 acres and etc.
A new stabilizer was remanufactured from 2"x 1" x 5mm RHS. Fixed the breaking up problem.
2 Pivot bushes were installed at each end of the stabilizer arm instead of just one at each end, doubling the bearing surface.
Biggest advance was to get a pivot shaft machined from Chrome steel that is used in hydraulic ram shafts. Not "chromed" plain steel but high quality Chrome steel [ a high level of chrome in it's composition and is also excellent for the pivot pins in the tynes on cultivating equipment ] with a chromed surface as in quality hydraulic ram shafts.
These can only be machined such as cutting the threads each end of the stabiliser rod shaft with tungsten carbide tools.
Any kevlar fibres in the pivot bushes that were projecting from the internal bush are that hard that they were actually ripping particles of steel from the mild steel standard shaft and were rapidly wearing and destroying the standard AGCO mild steel shaft within a couple of hundred acres work.
Chrome steel hydraulic shafting is extremely hard but not brittle and with a chrome surface as in hydraulic shafts for long wear times we have now done some thousands of acres of flex work and have only replaced the bushes once in about the last ten years.
Still on the same chrome steel shaft.
The standard AGCO stabilizer ball joint set up makes the ball joint and the stabilizer arm take the full thrust of the drag on the main LH skid plate as wear develops and clearances develop in the pivots of the parallel arms that are supposed to take those drag pressures.
There is no allowance at all for fore and aft wear in the link arms to the LH skid plate in the AGCO design so that stabilizer shaft and that ball joint finish up taking the full drag forces on the skid plate when it is on sliding along the ground.
A ball set up was made to allow it to pivot a little fore and aft as the LH skid plate also developed movement fore and aft due to wear and clearances in the parallel link arms.
In the set up illustrated the only forces that the ball joint and the stabilizer have to deal with are the sideways movement / vibration of the knife bar
The ball joint as illustrated has been replace with a simpler and more reliable, no pivot design using a 4"x 5/8 HT bolt welded to the ball joint housing [ the thread bit was cut off the ball joint so a standard ball joint from anywhere that has the right taper can be used instead of AGCO's $400 ball part ]
This HT bolt and ball was then installed into a larger diameter tube / pipe about 3 inches long running parallel to the knife using the rubber inserts that go into the eyes on the leaf spring shakles under the farm utes.
The tube/pipe with the welded ball joint bolt was bolted onto the front of the stabilzer bar with the bolt lined up along the header using plates, one on the stabiliser arm and the other welded to the ball joint bolt holder tube with slotted holes in the plates to adjust the ball joint for the correct fore and aft position on the end of the stabiliser arm after the ball's taper was fully tightened in tapered hole in the skid plate reinforcing bar.
The rubber spring shakle inserts between the welded ball / bolt and the tube allow a couple of mms fore and aft play of the ball joint to allow for the normal skid plate wear in the parallel arm pivots.
This set up is cheap and easy to make and has proven very reliable with no maintenance except greasing during the 1000 plus acres of flex work each year.
We have done thousands of acres of flex header work with the above described stabiliser set up and have had almost zero problems.
The initial AGCO flex stabiliser set up was a nightmare on the 30 ft 500 series flex header with all the troubles you guys have described above.
I also cut off any thread remaining on the broken parallel arms rod end ball joints and just welded UNF 5/8 x 1 1/2" bolts onto the broken rod end ball joints and use these as replacements.
They never break, unlike the originals and cost sweet FA to repair.
If that knife bar develops any sort of sideways movement or sideways vibration beyond a few millimetres you have a problem and it must be fixed and soon.
We demonstrated to a senior American AGCO tech a shallow but near full bowl of water sitting on the knife bar running the combine empty at full throttle with the head at knee height without spilling any water from the bowl after our mods to the stabiliser, skid plates, stabiliser ball joint and wobble box were made..
Most of this was written some time ago on this forum and is copied to this thread.
On the stabilizer bar for the flex front [ flex header ] we had a heck of a lot of problems initially as the stabilizers broke up, ball joints on the stabilizer arm broke or wore out in a few hundred acres, the bushes on the stabiliser pivot shaft broke up, the stabiliser pivot shaft lasted about 200 acres and etc.
A new stabilizer was remanufactured from 2"x 1" x 5mm RHS. Fixed the breaking up problem.
2 Pivot bushes were installed at each end of the stabilizer arm instead of just one at each end, doubling the bearing surface.
Biggest advance was to get a pivot shaft machined from Chrome steel that is used in hydraulic ram shafts. Not "chromed" plain steel but high quality Chrome steel [ a high level of chrome in it's composition and is also excellent for the pivot pins in the tynes on cultivating equipment ] with a chromed surface as in quality hydraulic ram shafts.
These can only be machined such as cutting the threads each end of the stabiliser rod shaft with tungsten carbide tools.
Any kevlar fibres in the pivot bushes that were projecting from the internal bush are that hard that they were actually ripping particles of steel from the mild steel standard shaft and were rapidly wearing and destroying the standard AGCO mild steel shaft within a couple of hundred acres work.
Chrome steel hydraulic shafting is extremely hard but not brittle and with a chrome surface as in hydraulic shafts for long wear times we have now done some thousands of acres of flex work and have only replaced the bushes once in about the last ten years.
Still on the same chrome steel shaft.
The standard AGCO stabilizer ball joint set up makes the ball joint and the stabilizer arm take the full thrust of the drag on the main LH skid plate as wear develops and clearances develop in the pivots of the parallel arms that are supposed to take those drag pressures.
There is no allowance at all for fore and aft wear in the link arms to the LH skid plate in the AGCO design so that stabilizer shaft and that ball joint finish up taking the full drag forces on the skid plate when it is on sliding along the ground.
A ball set up was made to allow it to pivot a little fore and aft as the LH skid plate also developed movement fore and aft due to wear and clearances in the parallel link arms.
In the set up illustrated the only forces that the ball joint and the stabilizer have to deal with are the sideways movement / vibration of the knife bar
The ball joint as illustrated has been replace with a simpler and more reliable, no pivot design using a 4"x 5/8 HT bolt welded to the ball joint housing [ the thread bit was cut off the ball joint so a standard ball joint from anywhere that has the right taper can be used instead of AGCO's $400 ball part ]
This HT bolt and ball was then installed into a larger diameter tube / pipe about 3 inches long running parallel to the knife using the rubber inserts that go into the eyes on the leaf spring shakles under the farm utes.
The tube/pipe with the welded ball joint bolt was bolted onto the front of the stabilzer bar with the bolt lined up along the header using plates, one on the stabiliser arm and the other welded to the ball joint bolt holder tube with slotted holes in the plates to adjust the ball joint for the correct fore and aft position on the end of the stabiliser arm after the ball's taper was fully tightened in tapered hole in the skid plate reinforcing bar.
The rubber spring shakle inserts between the welded ball / bolt and the tube allow a couple of mms fore and aft play of the ball joint to allow for the normal skid plate wear in the parallel arm pivots.
This set up is cheap and easy to make and has proven very reliable with no maintenance except greasing during the 1000 plus acres of flex work each year.
We have done thousands of acres of flex header work with the above described stabiliser set up and have had almost zero problems.
The initial AGCO flex stabiliser set up was a nightmare on the 30 ft 500 series flex header with all the troubles you guys have described above.
I also cut off any thread remaining on the broken parallel arms rod end ball joints and just welded UNF 5/8 x 1 1/2" bolts onto the broken rod end ball joints and use these as replacements.
They never break, unlike the originals and cost sweet FA to repair.
If that knife bar develops any sort of sideways movement or sideways vibration beyond a few millimetres you have a problem and it must be fixed and soon.
We demonstrated to a senior American AGCO tech a shallow but near full bowl of water sitting on the knife bar running the combine empty at full throttle with the head at knee height without spilling any water from the bowl after our mods to the stabiliser, skid plates, stabiliser ball joint and wobble box were made..
Meadowgreen
I can say I have ever run a 30 foot 8200 but my dealer installed a second stabilizers to act like a 30 foot and it didn't help at all...or at least for vary long. We have now replaced the rod and bushing 7 times between the two links, my head is 2 years old last year we ran it on a 62 and this year we bought an unsold 2008 R 65. The combine works great I find my self it 40-55 bu beans at anywhere between 5- 6 mph. so I know it can work but rebuilding it every 200 ac is a load of crap. We looked at the draper head but pricey is an understament. and If agco can't make a header in 2009 ( after like 85 years)that will cut.....I'm not shelling out 60 or 70 thousand for a 2011
I can say I have ever run a 30 foot 8200 but my dealer installed a second stabilizers to act like a 30 foot and it didn't help at all...or at least for vary long. We have now replaced the rod and bushing 7 times between the two links, my head is 2 years old last year we ran it on a 62 and this year we bought an unsold 2008 R 65. The combine works great I find my self it 40-55 bu beans at anywhere between 5- 6 mph. so I know it can work but rebuilding it every 200 ac is a load of crap. We looked at the draper head but pricey is an understament. and If agco can't make a header in 2009 ( after like 85 years)that will cut.....I'm not shelling out 60 or 70 thousand for a 2011
Big cob
to be honest i really didn't go or the head when we got it. I do have all the service manuals for the combine and corn head but my dealer has been giving me the run around saying the flex manual is back ordered. I know i sent it to the dealer last fall after we were done and the were suppost to go over it top to bottom with there top man . But instead Co-op kid replaced a belt).
So before it when to the field I gave it a pdi as per the onwers manual and replace the links the we lose put a brand new knife with roller guide. at that time dealer was kind of figuring maybe the old combine had been part of the problem ( Not really the case at all) I know for a fact that the Vs sheave is locked out I never did actually take a rpm guage and measure the speed of the knife, but I should. I realy do hope that the pro drive is out of time. at least then we could say we found something.
to be honest i really didn't go or the head when we got it. I do have all the service manuals for the combine and corn head but my dealer has been giving me the run around saying the flex manual is back ordered. I know i sent it to the dealer last fall after we were done and the were suppost to go over it top to bottom with there top man . But instead Co-op kid replaced a belt).
So before it when to the field I gave it a pdi as per the onwers manual and replace the links the we lose put a brand new knife with roller guide. at that time dealer was kind of figuring maybe the old combine had been part of the problem ( Not really the case at all) I know for a fact that the Vs sheave is locked out I never did actually take a rpm guage and measure the speed of the knife, but I should. I realy do hope that the pro drive is out of time. at least then we could say we found something.
ha.....they didn't have an answer for me today! in other words there not to sure what they looking for one thing they did tell me is that they have to send a rep down from hesston Kc to look at my head they can't not aprove a warrienty clam that big! they saying could be close to 20 grand....so they say. I told them that when a new engine hammers a rod throught the block.......and ya need a new long block there no problem head office just send's it down. But they say this is the only header this has ever happend to !
I tried to find anything in predelivery or service manual on lining up marks and find nothing. If box is tore down I see they want some things a specific way during assembly. Never had a box failure so havn't been able to see just how the box works. I would really like to know what they find out in your situation because I had a 7200 that had to much vibration. I just went with next smaller pulley to settle it down for we didn't need it going mach 1. I know it's back to basics and they likely have checked it out but I would check for proper clearance between front set of sheaves for corn varible (to much gap will overspeed sickle). Check the pulley size on rear shaft that drives the box (to big will overspeed the sickle). There are about a total of five pulleys that will fit and you sure don't want one on there that is for a rigid head. You say you put on new knife and roller guides and assume guards are sharp. Be sure to let us know what you find out.
Our head is a 2007 30 ft 8200 model. After breaking the knife backbone 3 times and several times of breaking the knife itself, we installed roller guides and a new backbone. Still we had vibration issues. Then we discovered that when the knife goes in it also goes ahead, therefore binding against the guard and on the outstroke it would also go back binding against the guard bolt. In other words instead of going in a straight line back & forth, it was making more of an eliptical path. We too had checked with the local dealer without a permanent solution. After making some phone calls we found out about the timing marks. Had we known to look for this earlier, it could've saved alot of repairs & headaches. Maybe we are an isolated case, but if that can help someone else out and save them time & money, just wanted to pass on the info.
I just bought a new 8200 30' flex head. Are there still issues with new heads or has Agco addressed these problems?
Honestly I think so .....at least in my cas,e my header is a 2009 and nothing but a nightmare. The service man came out yesterday to pick up some part that I needed to change on the combine and he was saying that my head is the only one in the area, with this problem so I guess I got the one made on friday afternoon!! We are a waiting for the service rep to come from head office. we'll see I guess we also looking at a new style skid shoe. it quite a bit heavier built and more flex!
The skid plate that the prodrive sits on broke in two on our 2007 30ft. 8200. It is lighter built than our old 800 head. I am dissappointed, because I was hoping for some improvment in 10 years. Also the newer head doesn't seem to have as much flex as the older 800. Anyone ekse notice this.
I'll post a message that was sent to me! We did look at them and they really do look like a great idea. This john fellow is a Top notch lad and he really does know what is going on. He is an Ex Agco/ Ac dealer give him a call!!! John Wilkerson a call at DS Downhams in Innerkip, number there is 1-866-744-2944, i am sure he will be able to help you out, he designed these skid shoes, they are much narrower then the Agco skid shoe and give so much more flexibility and gets you down much lower to shave the ground, we have had them on 2 heads now and wouldn't have an Agco flex head without them.
Rburk / Agr671
I agree with you the newer heads don't flex as good and aren't as heavy as the older series.
The skid shoes that Wilson farms is talking about do work quite well , (but they aren't cheap) ,we also use them and have for a long time.
He still sells the skid shoe kit himself I think , if his is Toll free # doesn't work from your area (519)-469-3883
Wilson Farms
John actually called me the other day and your head issues came up in the conversation , he was going to look up a couple of things I mentioned and said he was going to be talking to you guys again.
I agree with you the newer heads don't flex as good and aren't as heavy as the older series.
The skid shoes that Wilson farms is talking about do work quite well , (but they aren't cheap) ,we also use them and have for a long time.
He still sells the skid shoe kit himself I think , if his is Toll free # doesn't work from your area (519)-469-3883
Wilson Farms
John actually called me the other day and your head issues came up in the conversation , he was going to look up a couple of things I mentioned and said he was going to be talking to you guys again.
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