As I was telling you last time that I had my first and only breakdown on my first year of custom combining in the wheat harvest.
We have the John Deere shop inspected our combine at the end of the year or early spring. They have a list of items and areas on the combine that they look for worn or loose bearings, belts or hoses. We get the combine it in like a new condition by replace any of broken or worn parts.
I had the shop replace the bearings on the chopper drive because I heard them making a noise when I finished corn harvest the fall before. When doing so they didn't tighten one of the lock collars on the bearings in the correct direction. It came loose and cut the shaft that drives the chopper completely off, lucky it didn't start a fire.
It was about 4:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday, when it broke and I had about sixty acres left and was planning on moving up to Hobart yet that evening.
I pulled all the broken parts out of the combine about 5:30 pm and made a list of everything that I needed.
John Deere Company as a parts van that they keep moving with the wheat harvest, this van has almost every part of a combine in it. I called and they had the parts that I needed and would be open until 8:00, but it was in Altus Ok. Altus was about two and a half hours away from Walters. I had just enough time to make this work. They said they would wait for me if I was late.
I made it in time and got all the parts I needed. By the time I got back to camp it was 11:30. I worked on the repair until 1:00 AM and had most of the repair made I decided to go to bed and finish in the morning rather than try to get it together yet that night and be tired all day tomorrow.
It was about 10:00 when I got the combine back together. I was planning to finish the sixty acres I had left for Phil. He said he would finish that, and I should just load up and move while it was still tough in the morning. This help out because it would have been noon before we could start that morning because of the dew, and that would have put me late afternoon before we would have been done.
Next time I will talk about how we moved with just one truck. I would enjoy any comments or questions, send to dannyh@heimesharvesting.com . Till next time. Danny