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| You've asked a lot.
Here goes, but all answers I give are for a 90 series head, but I believe they are the same in the respects for which you are asking.
We run Calmer chains, they are a decent enough price and they last longer for the dollars spent than anything else we have found over the years.
1) We no longer grease the idlers, but leave the grease cap spacers in place to take up the extra shank length on the bolts they were designed for. We clock the grease zerks whereever they wind up when we tighten the nuts, they're irrelevant with the Calmer idlers that have sealed bearings. Some idlers we do shim up a little to make them track in the center of the chain, as all of our hardware is worn.
2) If they're 9 tooth, they're most likely Clamer, or for a short time IIRC R.E.Skiles sold some before Marion Calmer sent them a cease and desist letter (He's got the patent for the 9 tooth). More than likely they're an older style Calmer, there have been a few designs over the years. Three that I can think of now.
2a) The bearings in the Calmer idlers are a standard bearing, inexpensive and easy to find. We get them from the Big Bearing Store (online), as well as Deere. They're the same bearings used on Timpte trailer traps, and Deere rotary hoes. I think something else uses them, but I can't think of it right now. The Big Bearing Store has them for about $3, Deere IIRC, $8 or so.
Our current sprockets have about in the neighborhood of 500 acres a row and this year we dressed them with a grinder just a little to get rid of some hooks being formed on the teeth now. The cheap bearings last around 200 acres a row or so, we check all of them every year. Deere ones last a bit longer. They're cheap enough to replace more often to err on the side of caution.
3) We don't keep track of snap ring up or down on the idlers, our experience is they are universal whether up or down. We could be wrong.
4) To adjust: I tighten the end of the long bolt, holding both the jam nut (rearward, thinner nut) and the main nut (the one snuggled between the bolts in the casting). I draw the bolt until the round pipe covering the spring has about 3/16" or so of movement (space) Just a little more than one spiral of the spring. I then tighten the rear nut (the thinner jam nut) against the casting (where the front nut rests inside of) to lock the adjustment in place. I cycle the chain a few times and re check tension.
4a) Be sure that all of the chaff and debris is out of all surfaces where you will be adjusting to start with, even if you have to remove the entire casting the idler and adjustment mechanism is on to clean things out for starting tensioning and getting the proper tension.
5) Every year we swap sides with the drive sprockets, on our 90 series head, they cannot be flipped upside down. So we swap on the same gearbox, swap left to right, right to left. This gives us double the wear for each drive sprocket because now the chain is wearing the unused side of each sprocket tooth. The drive sprockets do wear out fastest, around 2-300 acres per row. We have always suspected because of their small size.
Hope this helps.
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JD 843 Cornhead, Calmer Sprockets & Gathering Chain Help.
