[jd9600guru]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

If you're going to go the OEM route, I would buy the bars and concave from Loewen, IMO its good as or better than deere's stuff.

Don't know much about sunnybrook.

Have you considered any stuff from St. John Welding?

jd

 

[davedan]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

Im going with a ST john concave and sunny oem fit boronized bars for my 9600. I wear out a set of Deere or loewan chrome bars every season and after using sunnys bars on a solid cylinder in my 50 they will be there for a few years I can tell.
I have used loewan concaves before and they are good units, nice and straight, thick bars, better than deere and cheaper too. ST. johns is the cheapest way to a new concave, send them yours and they exchange it for one already made up if in stock.
Do not buy Kuchar concave........ trust me on that one.
Check out sunnys boronized bars, I think they are the way to go.

 

[davedan]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

I like the idea of sunnys new concave in which the first four bars can be replaced as needed, not sure if they have them for the 88s yet.

 

[bent]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

The St. John is an oem concave with hardfaced bars. The nice thing is the bars stay straight, where the oem stuff wears from day one. I don't think you will see the problems where the concave is kinda worn, but not enough to replace this season.

Wheat is the worst due to the tight concave setting. Many times I will have mine set to about 1/8 inch. Well, with 1/8 wear in the bars, the gap is 1/4 inch in the middle. And with a factory Deere, 1/8 wear is about 500 hours. That makes a very tough machine to get a clean sample.

 

[8820titan2]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

Quote:Im going with a ST john concave and sunny oem fit boronized bars for my 9600. I wear out a set of Deere or loewan chrome bars every season and after using sunnys bars on a solid cylinder in my 50 they will be there for a few years I can tell.
I have used loewan concaves before and they are good units, nice and straight, thick bars, better than deere and cheaper too. ST. johns is the cheapest way to a new concave, send them yours and they exchange it for one already made up if in stock.
Do not buy Kuchar concave........ trust me on that one.
Check out sunnys boronized bars, I think they are the way to go.

Why not buy a Kuchar concave? Are they not good pieces? We don't have any Kuchar pieces in our combine but had thought about adding a few items soon. If you know something, I would like to know before we spend some hard earned money. Any info would be appreciated.

 

[txfarmer]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

I do not know why Dave said that, but I DO know that he has had LOTS of dealing w/them! He has had a BUNCH of different parts, made by Kuchar on his machines...

You will have to get him to tell you why, if he wants to...I just wanted you to know that he's not just saying that for the heck of it. If I had to guess, though, I would venture to say that one reason he advises to avoid Kuchar is that there are other companies out there (i.e. St John's) that are making just as good, or better equipment/parts for MUCH less money. The Kuchar concaves are way overpriced, if you ask me....

And as far as the 8820 goes, I would go with the St. John concave. I recently put one of their concaves in my 9600. After one HECK of a wheat harvest, I can't hardly tell any wear has occured. I bought some chrome bars from Shoup ; put them in the same time as the concave, and have no disappointments thus far from those, either.

 

[davedan]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

One major thing overlooked with bars is the basic design. Not only are Sunnys bars boronized which is the best metal treatment known to man BUT they can be reversed to wear out the opposite leading edge like gleaner bars. You cant do that with other bars out there.
Im guessing I will get three hard seasons out of my sunny bars before turning them around and that is a huge increase over what I stated before about wearing out a set of stock chromies every550 hrs.

 

[davedan]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

Im planning on taking my concave out of my 9600 and sending it to ST Johns welding to have it hardfaced. Ive heard many good things of the work they do and the cost is less than half of a new concave. And there isnt a concave made that can hold up like pure hardfacing.
Sunny has the replaceable front bars in thier concave but My concaves wear even past the first four bars. I have used Loewans concaves before and they are good units for the money but still not as resistant as hardfacing.

 

[davedan]

Re: 8820 replace concave & cylinder bars

St Johns have a web site showing the process for the most part. The hardfacing used is the same for like tillage and mining equipment for building up and shoeing parts. Stainless steel is nothing compared to hardfacing. St johns does have a machine to true up the comcave after rebuilding, which is a must and you cant sell a concave thats not straight anyway. I wasnt aware that Sunny rebuilt concaves and if so what do they do to rebuild them, cut out and replace bars? or hardface?