Hey, we're gonna talk to you today about three checklist items that you are probably missing when it comes to your combine. That's right. Three things that when it comes to your combine, whether it's set up maintenance or going out to the field, you might be missing. It's not because you're doing anything completely wrong, it's just because it's stuff you don't think about. Chad Perkins, a big large scale farm employee in northern Indiana. Chad Rson, our own with extreme Ag, and I have often said my favorite mechanically minded guy with an extreme ag. First time I met you, we got in a combine. All right, give me the first one. Chad Perkins. You said something about concaves. What is it that these guys might be doing wrong? Overlooking, not thinking about when they're combine, when they combine, when it comes to, uh, concaves, It is the, the levelness of the concave. People think that they buy a brand new machine and it is level from the factory. And I've been doing this for a very, very long time and I've probably found a number of machines I could count on my one hand that were actually set up right from the factory or from a dealer. What Does that mean, levelness of the concave? Well, I mean, You know, zero is zero, right? So just a a, I guess Sure. That zero is zero A sure zero is zero. That's a Sure. Zero is zero. Okay. So, you know, cause that tells you your gap. You know, cuz all the time, everybody that runs a machine, we've got four of 'em on our farm. Like, you're always talking to you like, Hey, where's your concave set? Hey, where's your rotor speed at? Well, you know, and so if yours is set on four and the other guys is set on six, well I'm on six. Well, okay, I'm gonna move mine to six. Six ain't always six. And it's just a number of reference. So just keep that in mind when you're talking to your buddies. It's kinda like tissue sampling. Don't hit me there. Don't go there. So yeah. So it's the same thing, just kind of know that, know what you know. Yeah. All right. And the thing is to the person that's like going, Hey man, I'm new to this game. In fact, I hire somebody to do my custom harvesting. The concaves are where the threshing happens. The cutting happens in the front with the head, the threshing. It's this, basically it's like a half circle where grain tumbles around it. So where is it that they're not set level? Is it that they're, I don't know what level means to the person like me, what you're telling us. You're basically, you have your, your three concaves that are in there. Yeah. And they are all on a mechanic or, or hydraulic will actuator or moved up and down. Yes. But the levelness is from the very front of that to the very back of the third concave. Right. With your thring elements. You wanna make sure that that is, you know, they're not outta whack. You want, you want, So, so you could say zero. You know, we've pulled ours in and out before. Let's say you take a set outta round bars out, you put a set of small wires in, you put the round bars back in, so then all of a sudden you're out of kilt. You've got it. So make sure that what zero is Zero. So when we say zero zero, you'll say zero in your machine. When zero is when it touches the actual cuz um, cuz they move up and down the con case when they touch the rotor, that's zero. That's zero. Okay. So if if zero is not zero, if it's a half inch gap there, that's not zero. Yes. Then you relate to millimeters. Gimme A second, gimme the second mistake. That maybe or, or item that's overlooked. Uh, when most farmers go to the field with their combine, Uh, one of the one things that I've seen a lot is people that finish up in tough conditions or they pull their machines in and they run 'em through the wash bay power, wash 'em everything. They'll open 'em up to get ready to go for the season. They'll look in the back in, yeah, everything looks good on Chaffer side. But the sif side down the bottom where all that stuff is fallen down there, this is the Stuff's Falling back all back in the cleaning Screen, the back cleaning Area, The bottom Screen. And so they're, they're leaving that nerdy because it's hard to get to. Yeah, it's hard to clean out. What what can we do about that? It's pulling tooth balls. I mean it's just, you just physically gotta get in there and look at it. It takes you a little bit of time to Do it. Or just open your screens all the way up, up to 47 or 48 or 50 wherever the screen will go on top screen, open it all the way up and just take a flashlight and look down through it. Like when we do that application, when we get done with wheat, because we, we run a lot of bearded wheat. Well that beard gets hung in there and starts choking up from the back to the front on the bottom con the bottom sea of It's the second time today I referenced the dirty, nasty bearded wheat in a field and you told me it was no big deal and now you're changing your opinion, aren't you? Yeah. Yeah. I haven't been there. True. I, I haven't found in Alabama. Okay, so is it hard to clean out once you fully out a sta use out, you drop two bolts come don, You take a long screwdriver. A lot of times you can kind of just jab it out. Just look at it, just Air wand, anything that cleans it up, but clean it out. Alright. Third thing, third mistake that people might be overlooking. You know, they say, man, I got this issue. I got this farm, I I got so much to do, I don't have time for that. And it mean you said already it's the, I think it's a belts belt. All right. So Chad belt, you and I referenced this this morning, is this similar to sprayer nozzles? It's easy to not think about 'em cuz it seems like they're still working. So let's take this for instance. Last year they run up on deer run on a deal in the south. I don't know about up here, probably not up here, but in the south we couldn't get a feet accelerator belt. They was back ordered. There was none available. And you leave pressure on that belt. It's a three or four ripped belt you leave pressure on it gives a crack right where your pressure is. So in the seasons between seasons take the pressure off of some of these belts if you can just for it'll, it'll just give them more life. And then when you get that crack in it, well then it starts to deteriorating from the inside out there and just take that pressure. Right. That is one belt for instance that was know she said You take the, take the tension off the belt, it's little extend the Light. Yeah. It's a simple handle. It don't get a crack in it cuz it don't sit there all between sending between seasons. Understood. So now the big thing is the person listening to this viewing this is gonna say what difference does it make? My combine still works. Are they losing yield or is it just a chance of breakdown, break Breakdown and then not have availability to parts. Okay, So it's not the things you've mentioned are they, they're not really necessarily costing big yield. Yeah, they costing intent. It cost, it's costing time and it can cost a lot of headaches because I've literally come across a cleaning fan belt. It's supposed to be 32.5 millimeters brand new from the factory. I had to talk to a guy, guy worked through it ended up that belt had wore down on those SHIs, basically like a snowmobile belt. It had wore down to 30 millimeters. It was telling him he was about 1200 on his fan RPMs in there. And I literally put a, a inductive timing light on it with a magnet and it was only turning like 10 or 1,087 RPMs. So it was not cleaning the machine was not running the way it should be running. Sure. So that's a loss of efficiency. Maybe it's diesel, maybe not able to do as much as possible. Generally it's lost time and potential for a breakdown. It's not a loss yield in things you talked about. Well it is, it is lost yields. Yeah, it's snowballs. You know, because then if you don't have enough then you're floating it out the back. You're riding it out on trash because this thing works. It gotta have enough air to keep it up off of the screens to float the trash out but not blow out the grain. Got it. You know, so if you don't have enough, the grain is riding out on the trench. So you're, You're, you're, I mean it's, you're putting three more bushels out the back of the machine If You would add You're doing that or you're going slower, you're making the machine work harder, you're putting more trash in your tank, you're making your green system work harder, you're getting docked on more trash F foreign Material fm I mean it just, I mean it just goes and Goes. You know what's interesting and I, I always pay attention cuz you know, I'm, I'm the guy that's the eager student. Everything you said isn't a big money thing. Nothing here was, it's gonna cost you 50 grand to do this. It's gonna cost you 20 grand to do this. It's just, it's like, it's like a chore. It's like, it's like routine maintenance. It's Just pay a little attention to it, look it over. Like try to find something wrong with them. You know? I mean like looking at it like what can I find wrong? And, and like I said, it's just the simple things of when you get done, just taking a, a pulley out of tension and dropping it, dropping it down and taking tension off of a belt. You know, just securing a life because it ain't the fact that we can't buy that belt. Right. We can't, that belt is not available in harvest. Seasons not available. Yeah. You know, and, and so that's a date we wait on that day a date. You know, we're talking about a hundred acres of machine. Yeah. Oh, at least, right? Yeah. You know. How many times have you got done? Man, I just like a hundred more acres. Weather sets in. I just like a hundred For A two for a $200 belt. Yeah. You know, it's, And maybe you should keep one of those extra on hand it sounds like. Well, I mean you Should 10, but you should also preserve the one you got. Yeah. Like I have extra ones. I got four machines. There's extra about everything I got. All Right. Level, level concaves, uh, what was the last part of Clean the screens out. Look at visually check the screens And maintain your belts and take the pressure off of your belts. These are simple items, don't cost hardly anything After you prior power. Wash it, pull it outside, let it dry, pull it outside, turn it on, walk off and leave it 15, 20 minutes. Let it sit there and run. Come back behind the 10 and grease it. That'll push the water outta the bearings. You know, stuff like that. Just simple, simple bearing and maintenance of the machine hygiene or maintenance. Now he Went outta the fourth one. Okay. No, I Mean we can keep going. Check the tire. P The fifth one. Yeah, just, just listen to your machine. Just listen to it and, and that's the way me and hit would run. I mean we can just, we can walk around, we can tell what that thing, you know, when it's happening. It let us sit there island and just help around it. Watch it just, it'll have a little lo to it, you know, just Like I said, I think everything you just said really boils down to paying attention and is maintenance items. And also when you think about it, what's this machine behind us cost? This is not a $20,000 piece of That's right. So pay attention to it. He's Chad Perkins. Uh, he's a big fan and also he is here to give us some information. He's Chad Henderson. I'm Damien Mason. Stay tuned for more cool stuff. And you know why share this with somebody you think can benefit from it. 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