Combine Breakdown

       Not the kind where something breaks or wears out and has to be replaced.  The kind like the circus taking down the tents and packing up to move on to the next location, that kind of break down.

     Most years, I try to get the combine cleaned up and put away immediately after harvest.  There is good reason for that.  Chaff and dust can be blown off with compressed air if it is still dry. 

     If a rain shower comes along, the dust and chaff turn to paste which clings faithfully to the nooks and crannies where it is lodged.  Instead of compressed air, it requires scraping with putty knife or screw driver to dislodge it.

     This year, three or four showers of .2” or less plagued the harvest.  The showers didn’t really cause much delay since the weather was so dry.  The wheat dried easily by early afternoon following a shower.

     But, the “damage” was done as far as cleaning the combine.  The paste had set before harvest was half done.  So, no need to rush to cleaning right after harvest. 

      Besides, there were other pressing things, like “saplings” growing in the summer fallow.  This week, getting the combine put away became first priority, some three weeks after harvest.

      Why clean it?  Why not just put it in the shed?  Rust is a big enemy for sheet metal surfaces used in the reaping and threshing (the “combine” of two machines) operation.  Dust and chaff attract and hold moisture that promotes the rust and deterioration of the metal surfaces.

        Failure to clean, especially when it has rained on it, leads to sheet metal that has to be replaced.  Not only is that a difficult job, it is hard to find the parts now.  The old gal just finished its 56^th harvest, assuming it has participated in harvest of some kind every year since it rolled off the assembly line.  (It hasn’t.  It stayed in the shed for some harvests.)

        It used to be about a one-day job to get it cleaned and put away, but the combine isn’t the only thing that has experienced too many birthdays.  This year, things got spread over three days.

     Day one, remove header, clean it, and put it away.

  

    There are four bolts securing the header to the machine, and a four-bolt collar connecting the functioning part to the main drive.  You have to crawl under the machine to remove all this.  If you don’t blow the dirt off before you perform that operation, you will have a face-full of dust and chaff when you loosen the bolts.  Thus the air hose.

 

     Cleaning the header is the easy part.   It reached nearly 100 degrees by the time I had the header clean and backed into the red barn.  I was pretty much done when that chore was done.

       It’s best to start from top and work down when cleaning the threshing part of the combine.  This year, the dust and flour combined with the rain showers added weed seed to the paste in the bottom of the grain bin.  Nothing for it but to crawl into the grain bin, get down on hands and knees and dislodge the stuff with a putty knife while dodging auger flights and auger shield protecting the crusted goop.

     It usually takes at least two trips into the grain bin. One to dislodge as much as possible.  Then you have to start the engine and run the unloading auger to get rid of the big chunks.  Compressed air aids in herding the big chunks out of the bin. 

     A second trip into the grain bin gets rid of the rest of the stuck stuff.  It still takes a while to force the smaller chunks out.  You need to be sure there is nothing left for the mice to dine on.  If you leave anything, they will come.  That is true of every other nook and cranny throughout the machine.

      Next comes the engine compartment including the radiator.  The cab follows the engine compartment.  The shop vac works best in the cab.  Compressed air just chases stuff around in there.

      Cleaning the exposed surfaces is fairly simple using screw driver or putty knife followed by compressed air.  The real problem lies in the guts of the machine.

 

     The granddaddy of all the nooks lies beneath the operator’s platform.  The only way to get a hand into the recess is to kneel on the feeder house and reach above your head.

 

 

     It’s the little square hole obstructed by pipes.  The cavity can hold a bushel of chaff, beards, straw and dust.  It also collects water.  Fortunately, I can stand on the ground and feed the vacuum and air hoses into the opening and remove most of the stuff.

 

       But neither vacuum or compressed air will remove the mud, and mud there was in the very bottom.  Nothing to do but contort on knees with bare hand uncomfortably overhead and in the hole to clean out the mud, which this year included sprouted wheat.

    When that job is finally done, the dirt has to be blown off the cylinder bars.  That is done through the wide smiling opening in the pictures above.  There are eight  of them.  It’s not difficult, but does take a little time.

     The wrap up consists of running the machine at full speed two or three times and blowing out all the stuff that the air hose can reach between the runs.  Even with all that, there will still be some left for the mice.

      The last step in the breakdown is backing the combine into the shed.  That has yet to be done.  No hurry.  A rain shower won’t hurt anything now.

     Doing that by myself requires several trips up and down the ladder to the operator’s platform, to be sure I’m not going to cause any “hangar rash” (dents caused by minor collisions inside the hangar).  I will get to it by and by.  I have to move a tractor and an auger in the shed before I can do that.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Things have a way of accumulating wherever there is an empty space. 

     Maybe that’s why my head gets filled with so many things.