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NW Iowa | I have a John Deere 643 corn head that is getting fairly old and tired. I check the deck plates last year and set them to the right measurements front and rear. But still seem to have quite a bit of volunteer corn. I made a homemade square and checked for loss at the header and after the combine and mostly all my loss is coming from the header. I harvest most of my corn between 15 and 18% I know this is more shelling and loss at dryer moistures but we have no bins and everything goes to town. The rolls and paddles are running as slow as the can to try minimize shelling but I can barely go 3 mph with the 6R30" on my 9400. The ears start stacking up and can't get into the auger if I go faster. How do I tell if my stalk rolls are shot? Should I be looking into different rolls or gathering chains with paddles? Any opinions on what BR welding sells? Thanks in advance!! |
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West Central IA | Look at a wedge kit to make the header more level and there are some small paddles that can be bolted to the gathering chains to help bring the ears up faster. High tin head, low tin with dry drive chains or oil bath head? |
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Cherokee County, Northwest Iowa | I tried a couple of those JD metal paddles bolted to the gathering chains, seemed to help, so I bought the poly ones from somebody and did all rows, believe it helped fair amount to get the ears up the line. Think I put them on every other one (original metal ear or paddle or whatever you call the dealies on the gathering chain). second the wedge kit idea also. bruce |
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NW Iowa | High tin with dry drive chains |
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NW Iowa | How do I tell if my stalk rolls are shot? |
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south central kansas | Time the gathering chains to where the fingers are in line with each other. |
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Remsen, Iowa | lancevr - 8/3/2017 07:57 How do I tell if my stalk rolls are shot?
I would bet they are shot. If the corn is not being pulled down through the plates by the time the stalk reaches the back of the deck plates, you get what you are talking about. The corn stalk should be through the deck plate by the time it reached the 1/2 way point. Driving 4.5 - 5 mph should not be out of line for that head. Not to be confused that you combine can handle that. |
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68340 | I run a 9400 with and 843 head, needed bigger lift cylinders, anyway it sounds like snapping rollers need replacing. I pulled every other wire out of concave and can run 3.5 to 4.5 mph in corn like you are picking. 220 bu/ acre corn. No trouble feeding. Could run faster, as far as the head is concerned, but run to much out back of combine if I do. Do have trouble with individual gear row boxes failing. Lost 2 last year. Have 4 replaced so far. I do not have standard JD snaps. Went with Clark. Maybe they pull the gear boxes to hard.?? Gear boxes are know to have the weld on the tip sprocket fail. |
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Southeast Ohio | I also have a tired 643. I'm rebuilding with parts from B&R welding. I dealt with them in Feb. Everything I sent to them to have refurbished looks great. We'll see this season how well things work. Customer service from B& R..... None FINER!! Absolutely excellent guys to work with. From reading here on NAT, they seem to get thumbs up too.
Looked at my invoice:
12 rebuilt stalk rolls
12 new deck plates
12 rebuilt guide blocks
12 rebuilt guide rails
12 drive and 12 idler sprockets
$2232 total ($180 of that is shipping)
Edited by Buz Brandes 8/3/2017 10:02
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Southeast Ohio | When the gearbox dies.... does the row just completely stop or is there some other sign that its in trouble? |
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ND | I purchased about 8 yrs ago a 1980 643 that was made over into a 8r22 with all plastic GVL snounts. 3 yrs ago replaced the JD fluted rolls with Calmers & the job is does is almost like a new Deere chopping corn head-all it needs now is the swinging blades under the head. Rebuilt the gear boxes in half the head with the heavier gear. The stalk comes into the middle of each row now & it leaves a 24" shank standing & everything above this is in, 2" pieces. The cross auger is getting thin now. Also replaced the center deck plate under the auger as it was wearing through. The 40 series heads I was told were good for 14000 ac but not sure if that was/row or the whole head. |
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West Tennessee | With some experience you can look at the rolls and tell how good they are. Borrow a new one and compare them. You will see the wear on the front part of the rolls. Replacing them is generally NO fun but well worth the effort. Get/borrow a puller and use a good air hammer. We run a WORN OUT 644 and get along great with it but keep our rolls in good shape. More good advice is to be sure your deck plates have a straight edge to them. If it's rounded (worn) inward time to replace those also. We run our deck plates quite a bit tighter than the operators manual says. IMO the manual recommendation is for really good big stalk corn and here in dryland country ours is a lot smaller. Maybe your plates are also too wide causing a lot of butt shelling. If you do put new deck plates on, borrow a suggestion from here and weld a piece of square key stock to the edge. Gives you more adjutment (closer) and doesn't hardly wear at all. I can't even remember how long ours have been on there now. Still very good. You CAN make this head work fine and give you very little trouble. |
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Northeast Indiana | +1 I would also look at running the deck plates tighter, helped with head shelling on our 643 as well . |
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West Central IA | The high tin head has a steeper incline so you will definitely want to use a wedge kit to make it run flatter. If you are going to change the stalk rolls, use the original style or you will be replacing gearboxes when you should be combining. Not that the other rolls will not work, just much more load on the gear boxes and they are not designed for that. If you are replacing the rolls, don't mess with a puller, unless you want to save a worn out roller. My brother works at deere on corn heads and has his own massive hydraulic puller and we struggled for an hour on a couple and could not budge them. I got up early next morning and took a cut-off wheel on my 5" grinder and cut almost through the roller on the side where the holes are to hook the puller and drove a chisel in the groove and split them. Took all of 10 minutes to pop both rollers off. Also if you have head mounted on combine you must protect your cab glass as grinder sparks will damage the glass. |
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Central IL | We had the same thing, a very tired 643 and had the same problems. Ears would pile up and could not go much over 3 mph in good corn. Last year we replaced everything. Deck plates, sprockets, springs, gathering chains, knives, snap rolls and WOW.....night and day difference. Wish we would have bit the bullet and did it a couple years ago. I think the "pooling" of ears was mainly from worn gathering chains. The new snap rolls pull the stalks in very well now. Our biggest unexpected expense was getting the old snapping rolls off. We ended up having to take it to the dealer so they could use their hydraulic puller. They broke one of their pullers trying to get them off they were so stuck to the gear box. |
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CIL | Replace the snapping rolls as others mentioned, but I would also add the calmer gathering chain slow down kit. Allows us to easily go 4 to 4.5 mph with a 9410 and 643 and helps smooth out feeding and keeps more trash out of the head. We've run it several years with calmer rolls and no wedge kit and have very little header loss but ours is a low tin oil bath head.
Edited by WTF2014 8/3/2017 11:46
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NW Iowa | Wow that is very reasonable! |
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NW Iowa | When you say use the original rolls are you saying from JD and stay away from others like calmer rolls? How about the cutting style from BR welding? In his assessment video he says they can put a knife edge on them. |
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| All replies are good, especially JD7520 and BHTN replies.
9400 w/ 6 row, say like 175-200 bu corn, roughly should be able to handle 4-6 mph, more or less per conditions, have you tried going faster, to get a more even feed ?
Are there certain variety's giving you more of a fit than others. ?
Corn that dry normally can / will butt shell a little more so than tougher corn, thats why I asked if going a little faster would help.
On your rolls, you want a fairly straight edge, it will be tapered if std rolls, but if you place a straight edge along it, there should be very slight dips or
wearing in, but say like 1/8-1/4" or more then replace. IF you see this, look at the edges and see if the hard surface on the edge is worn into the casting.
Wear plates, same way you want a straight edge, front to back, then also not rounded over, you want a square edge as much as possible.
When setting, you want them about 1/8 wider at the back and narrower at the front. Search on here for wear plate settings, I might have a pic of my tool and Von has made a set along with many others, that will speed this setting up considerably. You do NOT set them like a wedge !!!, meaning wide at front and narrow to the rear !!!!!!
I change mine yearly if necessary but in late August, I will scout my fields for the largest stalk ( dia ) and use that as a guide, and start out setting the wearplates about 1/8" or a little more than the stalk diameter. Then I'll tweak it from there once I start running.
90% of the time "here" though if I go with 1 1/8 up front and 1 1/4 at the rear, catches me for "most" conditions. Many times a tighter wear plate clearance will slow you down, but too wide will give you butt shelling.
Gathering chains.. You have a choice, you can run them with the teeth opposed from each other ( usually I do this for small ears ), or staggered. It usually is a operator preference, and sometimes a field condition thing, FWIW, 90% I run them staggered, and set my customers that way too with good results.
Make your tension is correct, when set properly there should be about 1/8"-3/16 gap from the bottom edge of washer of the adjusting bolt, to the spacer pipe. pull on the chains to be sure there is not binding of the idler slides and sticking under the guide channel. Then set you chain guides to wear there is 1/16 - 1/8 clearance after chain tension.
How is your auger trough ? any leaks here ?
Is the header set in underdrive, direct drive, or overdrive ? this depends on how the sprockets are. For slowest, you want the small on the driver ( rear ) and large on the front, direct will have both small on one side and both large on the other, then overdrive will have large on rear and small on front.
FWIW, I normally set most heads up in overdrive or direct, this allows to run a slower FH speed and keep the FH ( feeder house ) running belt cooler.
Wedge kits can and will really help, especially in dry fluffy stuff that does not want to feed in and bunch up in the center.
Also check the feederhouse to header connection for leaks, meaning are there any gaps at the bottom ?
May I ask how many kernals you are finding per sq ft ? e mail is good if you wish not to divulge over internet, but your op manual will let you know how many bu / acre loss is.
Auger, I been installing a fair amount of slow down sprockets on my customers that like to roll, and having good luck with it too as we do not get as many ears thrown out the front, and I take the rubber paddles OFF, unless I have a variety that fights me ( fluff ) and does not want to feed in.
I am a fan of the ear saver screen, this is basically wire fence rolled into a concave and mounts in front of the feeder house.
Sorry to be long winded, but just trying to help,
Good luck !
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sw corner ia. | I still run a 1980 model 643, about ten years ago I threw away the old cast rolls and replaced them with clarke machine knife roll conversions using oem caseih knives. I run the outside gears at 1 to 1 and run the head almost but not quite as slow as I the variable will let it go (9500 jd) I usually run about 4mph in pretty heavy corn and usually under 15%. these rolls work very well and running them slow seems to keep from shelling at the head but the knives will still pull everything through. I also replaced all the worn out snoots with clarke flip up plastic ones. makes it really easy to service everything when you can get the whole snout up and out of the way.
Love this old head, it still has the original bearings in the gearboxes. |
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West Central IA | I have used the oe style from Shoup. If you try to get the rolls to be more aggressive, you will have problems with the cluster gear as someone else mentioned. I know everyone will say to go with the others, but if you have new rolls they will work fine. Why ask for trouble when you do not need it. |
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West Central IA | If your head is a 1980, it is a low tin. |
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Moreauville LA | HF 213 was the only one that mentioned under/direct/over drive on the sprockets. Id bet that head you are running probably was set on a 6600/20 and never sped up.
Speed that head up. See what happens. Takes about 5 minutes.
In doing so and if it helps, moving the auger drive to the backshift is a good thing. Besides that, if you are handy with a welder, stand it up on its back, pull off stalk knives and get to building up rollers. |
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WCIN | No. Clang, clang, clang on the end rows while turning. The cluster gear breaks and only drives one snapping roll till more $hit breaks if you keep running. |
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Northeastern Pa. | I thought my snapping rolls were worn out but when I put new gathering chains on it worked great on our 9600. I want to check my head speed as mentioned above. |
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WCIN | I have a 1975 643 with tapered and notched straight rolls. I prefer the tapered. I see no noticeable difference, but I weld up the rolls every 800 acres.
When you return to the field the next day, then you notice the difference.
But, you can grind an edge on the flute. Gives it more aggressive stature.
edit- a 93 series cross auger sprocket helps with putting the outer drive chains to 1:1 ratio. It's bigger, so is slows the auger down. Takes some cutting, on mine anyway.
Edited by oilmaster 8/3/2017 20:47
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Morris, IL | I find the same problem with 7720 on 643, in good corn in high residue i can't get the ears away fast enough. Don't want to speed head up as seems more butt shelling. I'm traveling very slow at least compared to modern standards. 2.5-3mph with 7720 on 643. It varies based on conditions but sometimes it starts building up have to stop let it clean out. I noticed last year fungicide use makes big difference. I have ear savers on every row but can't believe i'm not loosing some in those conditions. If i make it over 2.5mph it will be a miracle as our crop looks pretty good.
I don't understand this whole overdrive/underdrive making a difference, i can speed head up doesn't make that much difference in some conditions. We have a corn reel for down corn would help in those conditions but other cons override leaving reel on unless i have too. I have tried every other paddle and didn't think they made much difference. Thinking maybe i should put them on every row i'm not sure, seems like in one year mine were shot seems like 200$ to throw away end of season is a lot.
As far as volunteer corn, tillage really makes a little look like a lot. Not that this is answer you want but i buy a corn killer for $1.20 an acre have spotless fields. I'm shocked how many don't use it and have some ugly fields. I know it's not big deal but does make big difference in the overall look of field, course if you have waterhemp all over little corn don't seem like big deal.
We have few B&R welding corn head parts, knife rolls, guide blocks, maybe others. Nothing but good to stay about them, i think after one year one of the blocks developed a crack i welded it up and ran fine all year. I put Calmer slow down kit, would love his choppers but i'm too cheap for that. Run a devastator really like job they do for almost 1/2 what calmer would cost but both would be sweet combo. But the B&R rolls do chop more then factory rolls, they pull harder to be aware push head much past 3-4mph i would be thinking of changing your cluster gear, no first hand experience there just what i've been told by 3-4 different guys with first hand experience. They all say worked great on 7720 but when i got 9500 i started popping cluster gear, which doesn't sound like fun in season job.
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sw corner ia. | I have looked at them side by side and they have the same frame. only thing different is the side sheets, and open outside drive chains, no oil bath. the only thing "low" about mine was the side sheets.
my point being buying a wedge kit is just a waste of money/time. |
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| On our 643 we put on the calmer slow down sprockets for the gathering chains, run it 1 to 1 and when we put new snapping rolls on which were just factory John Deere's we took the plasma cutter and cut windows in them just like the calmer rolls. It helped with feeding more even and really helped with butt shelling as it allowed the stalk to get back further into the head. It also allowed us to drive faster and do a better job. |
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Southern Pa. | dvswia - 8/3/2017 22:24
I have looked at them side by side and they have the same frame. only thing different is the side sheets, and open outside drive chains, no oil bath. the only thing "low" about mine was the side sheets.
my point being buying a wedge kit is just a waste of money/time.
A wedge kit will allow the head to run at a flatter angle, which is helpful in more ways than one. |
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| I know the feeling on those rolls being stuck. I fought a few on our 90 series head then gave in and bought one of these from Shoup https://www.shoupparts.com/RP500/ . It's worth the $250. I still had to use a torch on some of them to get them hot right behind the roll pin hole, but it made it much easier. All of them ended up coming off without me having to cut them off. |
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West Tennessee | JD 9400 - 8/4/2017 07:40
dvswia - 8/3/2017 22:24
I have looked at them side by side and they have the same frame. only thing different is the side sheets, and open outside drive chains, no oil bath. the only thing "low" about mine was the side sheets.
my point being buying a wedge kit is just a waste of money/time.
A wedge kit will allow the head to run at a flatter angle, which is helpful in more ways than one.
Agree. We're happy with the wedge kit on our old 644 we run on a 9770. Has the added benefit of being able to raise it up higher to get across crossings, ditches etc. |
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Tips to get a 643 head to do better
