September 18, 2014

View of the day-Before the makeover, the combine sits with muddy tires.

With the better part of the week off, we made a few miles, going up to Yorkton on Wednesday night to stay over at home. Marilyn had a theatre meeting and we had to be in Esterhazy by 7am Thursday to finally pick up the adapters for the duals on the combine.

After getting the adapters, we drove back to the combine and moved it into Kipling to the tire shop. Al stayed with the combine and Marilyn came back to the camper to wait until he was ready to move out to the field with the new boots on the combine. 

She nicely got to the camper when she got a call from Al...we needed to go back to Esterhazy to get some spacers made for the large holes on the adapters. Back to Kipling to pick up Al, then up to Esterhazy.

The new duals have a 9 bolt pattern. Tyler from SaskPro, did a great job of fabricating the adapters so the tire would fit perfectly.

The combine tires have 5 sets, or groups, of 3 holes for a total of 15 bolts holding them on. The adapters use the middle bolt of each group to hold the tire on while the adapter is bolted on by the other 10 bolts. The bolts were too long once the factory spacers were taken off, so Tyler had to make some to fit the larger holes.

We got back with the spacers so the tire guys could work their magic...and they did. Just over an hour and Al was on the road, heading out to the field. 

Marilyn had pulled the header out to the field, taking the scenic route, but eventually got there. We got the header on and lubed up, then Al tested it out for a couple of rounds. We are doing pickup work in canola now, so we had to get the kinks out of the header.

Finally a good day, just cracking the 50 acre mark...not bad considering we didn't get started until after 4pm and the canola is somewhat "wet". With the buggy keeping us rolling, there is hardly time for a potty break, especially with 4 machines in the field. It's all about timing.

An absolutely gorgeous day and no one got stuck...