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View of the day-Servicing, fueling and fixing this morning.
We got to sleep in a bit, since we were done with the barley. We drove over to the farm to fuel/DEF up then put the header in transport to move back to home base.
We had water issues in the camper. The hot water was smelling like rotten eggs, but we thought we had solved the problem when we put the new anode rod in the water heater. After doing a little research, Marilyn decided we had to sanitize the system...but we didn't have any bleach to do it, so it got added to the shopping list for the day.
We took a road trip up to Stockholm to visit with a friend who had just upgraded from CaseIH 2388's to 7088's. Al helped him tweak the settings for picking up wheat, then Marilyn got in and set up the monitors. Actually, he wanted nothing to do with the monitors, so she set up the main run screen, shut off any information only beeps, so he could just drive it like the old ones.
After spending a couple hours there, we went into Esterhazy to get a few groceries and the items for the water sanitizing, then headed back to the camper.
Marilyn got the water business going, while Al went and blew out the rads and filters at the shop. It took a while to get the bleach through the system, but after letting it "cook", draining and refilling, the rotten egg smell was gone. Replaced by a chlorine smell, but that was preferable to the alternative.
Al has decided to try and keep the Pull-Type Combine heritage alive, by collecting and displaying real combines on our land along highway 16 near Rokeby, just east of Yorkton.
He had mentioned it to one of his toy customers at the threshermans show a few weeks ago...told him what his limit was...and tonight he called Al to let him know he got three for him at the auction in Yorkton over the weekend.
One International 914 and two John Deeres *spit*, a 6601 and a 7721.
Now he just needs to figure out how he will display them...
View of the day-Supper break for most of the crew.
Yesterday we serviced the combine, switched out the Nav controller from the farmers combine into ours to see if there was any difference. None. Kind of a good news/bad news thing...good that it wasn't the controller/bad because we don't know what else it could be. We were back at the camper by 5pm and that was the end of the day.
Today we were back combining in the barley and looking forward to the eclipse. We knew we weren't in for totality, but we had hoped it would dim a little bit at least. Didn't see much change at all.
We continued on with no incidents, just had to break once to change a few knife sections and a guard on the header, but it was otherwise uneventful. With four machines running there were a lot of acres covered.
Marilyn had to take a break in the evening to attend a theatre meeting via phone. She finished the first meeting just as Al was quitting for the day and parking the combine. The "post meeting" meeting took a little longer.
We are finished with the barley, so tomorrow the combine will come back to the yard to wait for the oats this weekend.
Maybe we will get that autosteer working yet...
View of the day-Dancing with the poles again, cutting barley with the John Deeres.
An early morning as we were up and moving the combine back over to the first area we started in. Itchy barley again...and lots of it. This was yielding over 100 bu/ac so the buggyman and the truck drivers were kept hopping all day.
Al combined all day and with the exception of plugging the straw spreaders a couple of times, there were no issues with the combine. Marilyn went back to the yard and spent a couple hours cleaning out the shop trailer...something that has been on the to-do list for quite a while.
Marilyn drove back to pick Al up after they quit for the day. He had combined just over 100 acres, top day so far.
Tomorrow is 100 hour service day for the combine and since they are short a truck driver, Big Red gets the day off. It is Sunday after all...
View of the day-And, we wait. Finished the winter wheat and had to wait for the other truck to show up.
We had high hopes of the combine parts sliding on as smooth as they came off. We were also hoping last night was a bad dream. Both wrong.
We started working on the combine early and were having the same issues as last night. Fortunately for us, Alex was fueling up the combine and was able to give us a bit of input into the way it should go back together. The biggest problem was that the hammer we had been using on one of the old parts had made a mess of some of the parts. This would be one of the expensive parts that we thought we could salvage.
We got various files out and started to "unmash" what the hammer had reformed. We worked on those splines for quite some time before deciding we wouldn't need the slow speed option so we could slide the toothed bearing on from the other side. And it worked.
After getting everything back on the shaft, we tried putting the range shifting yoke back on. No way would it go...the shaft was sticking out too far. This meant we had to take it half way apart to get that put on. Once that was accomplished, we put the rest of the shields back on and went to test it out. It worked fine...that was a relief.
We got to help finish the field they had been working on, then moved over to combine some seed wheat. It wasn't a big patch, but with four machines, it didn't take long to lap up.
We moved back to the yard and blew off the combine before parking it for the night. We have finished the winter wheat and have a week or so wait until the oats is ready.
Maybe we'll find something to occupy the combine until then...or maybe get the autosteer working...
View of the day-What we spent the better part of the day working on. The straw chopper.
We had rain during the night, which worked out well for us. We needed to fix the straw chopper drive, which meant disassembling it to find out exactly what parts we needed.
Al was pleasantly surprised at how "relatively" easy it was to get everything apart. After phoning around to see where we could get the parts needed, we were off to Yorkton to pick them up.
With the parts in hand, we needed to press the old bearings out to use in the new pulley. We don't have that type of tools, so we went out to see Al's favorite repairman, Danny. It took some time, but we got everything apart and back together without incident and were back on our way home by 6pm.
Apparently it didn't rain enough to hold up the combining, as they were all running when we got back to the field. But first we had to reassemble the parts we had brought back. This turned out to be the hard part.
We fought with getting everything back on the shaft until it was too dark and the mosquitoes were too hungry.
Best to sleep on it and look at it in the early morning light...
View of the day-A little drone action on the last of the winter wheat.
Al went out to the combine early to see how the tech from the dealership was making out. He had a list of things to try to get the autosteer going, so Al figured he would hang around in case someone had to hold the flashlight.
Marilyn got out to the field just as the tech was putting his testers and laptop away...still no luck. We continued combining "old school"...until the chopper plugged again.
This time Al was driving and he thought he had stopped it in time, but it appeared he had actually stopped it to soon. He felt the wad might have gone through. Too late. We drove back to where the trucks were parked and started pulling straw.
Once Marilyn got inside, she realized it was only 50% as plugged as yesterday...still plugged though. It seemed strange with all the power this machine has, that the chopper would be the weak point. The belt was getting smoked a lot from the slipping, so to be on the safe side, Al sent Marilyn to Windthorst to pick up a new one so we would be prepared.
Marilyn was a mile out of Windthorst, on the way back to the field, when Al called to say she should go back and see about getting some other parts for the chopper. It appeared, after inspection, that the splines on the high speed drive for the chopper were worn on the edges and that was causing it to slip into low gear and plug the chopper.
Al explained the parts needed as best he could...Marilyn did know "sort of" what he was talking about. Back at the dealership, she worked with the parts lady to figure out the right pieces to the puzzle. After getting the service manager in on the job, we decided on the parts. They didn't have them, but could get them by tomorrow morning. She was good enough to give a few print outs of the parts so we would have a check list.
Al figured we wouldn't worry about getting it right away, that we would get the winter wheat finished with it the way it was. The farmer was OK with the coarser straw that was being left, so we continued with the chopper in low range.
Shortly after that, one of the other combines blew a chopper belt, so they had to run to Windthorst to pick up a new one and install it. It didn't take too long before they were back with the rest of the machines and we had all four running until the field we were on was finished.
We had a new grain cart show up at the field later in the day. This was to replace the green one that was "resting" in the field. This one is 2000 bushels and allows us to connect via bluetooth on the cell phone to see how much we have unloaded for combine calibrations. Now that's a smart cart!
One day left on the winter wheat...
View of the day-Servicing time while we wait to see if it will rain or get dry.
We took the shop trailer out to the field so we could use the compressor to blow out the filters and rads. It sprinkled enough on the way over that we had to use the wipers, but two miles away, at the field, there wasn't a drop.
While Al worked on cleaning the filters, Marilyn did a bit of cleaning on the GPS antenna to see if we could narrow down the autosteer issue. We swapped the module out with the one on the farmers combine and it worked perfectly. Back to square one.
After several phone calls to ProHarvest, it has pretty much boiled down to a software issue, which the local dealer promises to come out to rectify. But first we have to finish the winter wheat.
The weather threatened all day and there were even severe weather watches out, but we managed to be in the right spot as they seemed to split and go around us. With time to kill while we waited, we went into Kipling for lunch.
Back out at the field, we did some more waiting and finally at 3pm we did a test...15.7%. We were good to go. All four machines cranked up and we were making dust...not a lot, mind you...but at least it was going through.
We cut until 7:30, which was when it got tougher and the dust basically quit coming out the back.
Dark skies to the south and north of us, but we stayed dry...
