Small Grain Harvest Pre-Check List for Combines
Kevin runs through his checklist for prepping the combine for small grain harvest and has a hack for keeping the dust off the windows.
00:00 Small grain harvest is fixing to come up. Folks. We need to be getting our combines out. Check 'em over winter, see what's going on. 00:06 Hopefully you did a good job cleaning your machines up in the fall. Things you wanna look for, look for. 00:13 See if you can tell if they've had any mice rot issues, anything of that nature. You want. Go over these machines. 00:19 Check all your wiring harnesses, nooks and crannies. If there's trash built up, inspect those need to really go through the machine real thorough, 00:29 observing, looking at things. Check all your belts, your oils and your lubricants and your gear cases, your drive lines. 00:37 Don't forget your air pressure and your tires on the machines with tires. Check your tracks, make sure they're in good shape 00:44 for machines with tracks. Check your chopper. Look for any broke knives, broke hammer straps, anything in that chopper, it might cause a vibration. 00:54 Look for wires hanging down loose at the cornstalks. Might have got knocked on in the fall and you didn't realize it was like that. 01:01 We've spent some time cleaning on this and it's not just spotless, but, but it's pretty clean. Um, but you want to check everything. 01:10 Like we know that we've got a sensor right here that is bad. We know that sensor is, is broke. 01:19 Uh, then that come from a cornstalk. So we're going to fix a shield right here on this machine to protect that sensor so it don't get broke no more. 01:27 'cause we broke a couple of them last year. So we know it's an all ongoing problem. You just do your visual, walk around, check your, 01:38 check your elevators, open your doors up here. Check the tension on them chains. Make sure they're adjusted right. Your clean grain elevator. 01:46 Be sure and check all that. Just take your little extra time to go around. Pull all your panels and shields back. 01:54 Look at everything behind the shields, behind the panels. You wanna keep everything clean up 02:00 on top of the feeder house. Check, check all. Pull your doors back. Inspect. Look inside the machines. 02:09 Same way with your rock trap down, down in that area. Be sure and check that rock trap. Good. Keep it good and clean. 02:18 Check your, you know, some machines. You gotta change your speeds on your, on your drives. Whatever needs to be done. Just go ahead 02:26 and get all that done and ready. Check your feeder house slats. Check your, um, check your drum height. 02:34 You may need to lower the drum. Maybe you was picking corn last and your drums up high, so you need to lower it down low. 02:40 Be thinking about those things. Keep that cab good and clean. Go ahead and clean your windows. One neat thing we do 02:48 after we clean the windows real clean, then we actually put some, uh, car polish on them. And the car polish keeps the dust from sticking as bad 02:57 and you can just blow 'em right off. And, um, the rain X actually cannot be, it can be a bad thing. 03:03 Uh, we used to use Rain X, but if somebody uses ammonia glass cleaner and you put rain X on your windows of the cab, then uh, 03:10 it'll put like a haze on it and it's a pain in the butt to get off. But if you use that car polish, uh, McGuire's is 03:17 what we use in a spray bottle. You just spray it on, wipe it right off, polish it right off, 03:23 and it leaves them windows really, really slick. And the dust don't stick near as bad. And I even, I like doing my lights too. 03:30 And, uh, that helps keep the dust from sticking on those lights, uh, gets your GPS, 03:35 your ca your receivers on there. Get those things calibrated. Make sure if you got any software that needs to be upgraded, 03:43 your software's upgraded. Just check everything. Make sure all, all your programs are right, your dimensions are still the same. 03:51 It's always a good idea to write your dimensions down on the location of your receivers in correlation 03:56 to your header and your work points. And just a few odd and end things that, that we do on our farm to really try to eliminate downtime and increase productivity. 04:08 It's a good time to go ahead and get these machines in any chance you get if they're not ready to go and just 04:14 'cause you went through 'em in the winter. Go ahead. You know, right now let's go through 'em again before it gets to, uh, harvest time. 04:21 Y'all stay safe.
Growers In This Video
See All GrowersKevin Matthews
East Bend, NC