The combine harvester is undoubtedly the second most well-known farming machine, besides the tractor of course! It’s essential for harvesting your crops and without a good, faultless combine you’ll end up ruining your profits and even turning a loss.
As such, maintaining your combine harvester is very important. With good maintenance you can avoid damage occurring. If it’s already too late, fear not! Follow this article to work out where your combine needs attention and how to go about replacing the parts or fixing it.
Checking Combine Parts
The main components of your combine harvester are:
Cutting parts,
Gathering parts,
Sifting parts,
Isolating parts,
Cleaning parts,
Depositing parts,
And of course, the engine and cab where all the controls are.
Regardless of which crop you are harvesting, the brand of combine you are driving and the model number, the components will all be fairly similar. The process needed to harvest crops is universal.
Taking apart the combine is not recommended unless you’re an expert. Instead, run the combine along, stopping midway down the field and get out for an inspection. You should be able to see which parts aren’t working properly.
Cutting parts will be immediately clear as you can see that crops haven’t been cut properly, for example. Think about why they aren’t cutting properly. Are you driving too fast? Is the ground too uneven for the springs? Are the blades blunt?
Some of the internal parts may be more tricky to diagnose. Blockages may occur, pipes may crack, bolts might have shaken loose. For these problems, start by giving it a good once over with a torch, looking everywhere for signs of damage.
You might also notice crops being lost or left on the ground after harvesting – this is usually indicating a gap somewhere or issues with the cutting blades. You can try looking at the places that get worn easily (plates, belts, blades etc.) and replace them if you aren’t already replacing them every year.
Most of the time it just requires a little thinking and logic to work out what’s causing the problem. So, before you go to call up the mechanic why don’t you try and sort the problem yourself?
Finding Replacement Parts
As your combine harvester is really an amalgamation of different machines, finding spare parts is actually not as difficult as you may think. Sure, mixing different brands together won’t always work but with the internet at your finger tips you can usually find something that will fit.
If eBay and your usual second-hand farming websites aren’t giving you any joy, try local forums and asking around – you may find the replacement part you’ve been looking for or advice on how to fix the problem altogether!
Fitting the parts is usually best left to a mechanic, unless you are super confident and can pull a combine apart and put it back together again. This is not a good starting job for the inexperienced mechanic as combines are easily the most complex machines on the farm.
Ideally, you should check your combine parts thoroughly every year, way before you need to use it. This way you’ll have the time to fix it up, replace parts of buy a new combine before harvest comes around. It might even work out more cost efficient to buy a new combine harvester, or rent one from a company that will do the repairs and maintenance checks for you.