August 18, 2015

View of the day-Getting cranked up to start the day...most of the crew, at least.

It had rained three times during the night, so we weren't sure if we were going to get going very early. The ladder extension was top of the list, if we had time to do it, but after the rest of the guys got their equipment moved out to the field and did a test, there was no fixing anything. It was "go"time.

We moved our combine out and Marilyn brought Al back for the General, the went back to the camper to make lunches. Once she got back to the field and took over combining, Al was delegated back to truck driver.

Shortly after Marilyn got started, the alarm came on for the straw chopper, so she shut everything down and went to inspect the cause. there wasn't one...everything was working as it should. Al came out and the only thing we could figure out was the sensor must have been bad, or not in the "sweet spot" to read the RPM's. We could see nothing was seized up and it was turning properly, so Marilyn went back to work.

The alarm would go off occasionally but when it did, the numbers would go from 2850 RPM to zero without dropping gradually, so Al called Ray from ProHarvest to see if he could shed some light on the problem. He sent us back to do some adjustments on the sensor and when that didn't help, said we should get a new sensor...unfortunately, the only place "close" by that had one was in Weyburn...180km SW from where we were.

Before deciding to make the trip there, we checked to see if maybe the bearing could have been the problem. Just in case it gave up the ghost, Al called the CaseIH dealer in Moosomin to see if they had the bearing. They did, so Al drove 50km E to get one. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found out there had been a change up on that bearing after a certain serial number and we were in that category. They didn't have the right one. The parts guy felt really bad for Al driving all that way for nothing, but one of the mechanics was a great help, so it wasn't a total waste of time.

On his way back, he decided to bite the bullet and drive to Weyburn to get the sensor, since it was going off and on randomly all day...but still doing it's job normally. So it was just a 460km day for Al...and he loves driving. Not.

We combined until 9:30pm, when it had gotten tough and slowed everyone down. Lack of wind wasn't helping...it was making it tough to see through the haze.  We filled the trucks and called it a night. Marilyn got her once a year chance to drive the loaded General back to the yard.

Just like riding a bike...it all comes back...