[jpt175]

Are the feeding problems that the R65 had in beans been corrected with the new combines?

 

[lookingglass]

Absolutely. It has improved over time, but the 6 series has removed the hump between the front and rear feed change, which is the biggest improvment you can make. Add that to 7" feed drums, 4 strand chains and a rear chain feeding faster than the front and you have a machine that will feed pretty well. Certainly much better than the 2 and 5 series. That being said there will always be some challenges with a machine with 2 feeder chains compared to a machine with one. But I think the new set up will feed as good as anything else out there.

 

[scottinswil]

We bought an 08 R75 this past fall and had very few problems with feeding. Our 02 R62 had no improvements or updates and we had a heck of time in green stem or in tough conditions. We are only currently running a 25ft head on it though but it will flat eat it up. If it will get past the head it will take it. Heck of an improvement over the 62. I know we could go to a 35ft head easily. The 4 strand chains I think really help. No torque limiter on the rear drive also. Lets hope Agco moves forward with more improverments.

 

[nddan]

Actually the '08 R65-75 had the floor mod factory installed. I only heard of a couple guys having an issue in wheat. One was corn varible sheaves never filled with grease and started sticking, another rear feed belt to loose causing belt to get glazed, another was rear feed chain tention springs not adjusted up properly, another was rear chain drum stop set so chain started out to far off the floor (needs to just clear floor if in wheat) and last one ticks me off (name brand jobber head with wrong displacement orbit motor for center draper as well as sloppy job of bringing it into our 40" chain properly). Don't know if Gleaner needs to do anything with clearance of chain to the floor but I do think they should be sent from factory with blocks set to let chain down closer to floor especially in tough to flow wheat and or running heavy returns. I think Gleaner is also testing shortening tail end of front feed like our kits have been doing and that should further improve transition between chains in all conditions and crops. At any rate the feeders have been so very very close to a non issue with the recent improvements.

 

[lookingglass]

NDDANS kits are the berries. We put it in our R72. If you don't have the machines with the mod feed floor from the factory, the first investment to make is the kit he sells. We spent money on small feed drums, udating the rear feed shaft to eliminate the slip clutch, CDF rotor and while they all helped, Dans kit alone did more than the sum of all the things I just mentioned which cost over $5000 versus his kit which I think cost me somehwre around $500. If we would have bought a new 76 I think I would have tlted the rear of the front feeder down before we ever took it to the field.

 

[nddan]

Thanks Lookingglass, The rear of front feeder is tilted on '08 and newer machines. This was likely the most important step to fixing transition between chains. Even more than removing hump under rear drum. Thing about it is that about the time the factory had the plans in place for factory floor mod I had been in Australia talking to a great dealer. He had been tring to determine why the floor mods were working so good. While he had the feeder off a '92 or '93 machine he noticed floor was two inches shorter than newer machines. This lit up a light bulb for me because the earlier machines generally feed much better than newer machines. When I got home I went around to measure some floors to see just when they lengthened floors. This all lead me to feed floor mod phase 2 or 3. I went with shortening tail end of front floor 3" which was an inch more than earlier factory machines plus tilted it down 1/2" which was 1/4" less than first kits or plans. This gave me all the room plus over original kits or plans and allowed straw to drop away from front feed quicker to allow nice transition under rear tention drum. This also eliminated the need to drop front of rear floor for there was no longer interferance between the two floors at a certain feeder height. We still did remove hump from rear floor for that is certainly a plus. One thing about not lowering front of rear floor is it made it a little more important to modify drum stops to get higher lift of eight inch drum or to install 7" drum. Anyway by the time this shortened floor was discovered it was to late to get into production. No worries for what they were going with was much better than what they had. Now after three seasons of kits with instructions to shorten floors I think the proof is there that there are no drawbacks and likely another step forward.

 

[dillold]

where could i get more information on these kits and instructions