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| I just installed my openers (3.5 mm on a JD 1770NT) the way I always do. I know you're supposed to use a business card and try to get them to 1.5" but I never have one nearby in this electronic age so I always grab them at the top rear with ONE hand and if I can turn them really easily with respect to each other I say they are too loose and if I can't turn them with respect to each other I say they are too tight.
Well, for the heck of it I went and scrounged up a business card and I have been shimming them way too tight.
I am fairly shocked that 1.5" makes it so they are just barely touching. In fact, if they are at 1.75" and I add one more shim on just one side, the disks will spin freely with respect to each other for almost the entire revolution and all of the sudden I'm shimmed at 1" so I guess I'll just leave it at 1.75"?
Maybe I'm not using the business card right? I cut it in half and shoved one in from the bottom and the other from the top. I only pushed hard enough to let the cards stick in there by themselves. The business card seems like a normal business card, not extra thick or extra thin.
So what problems have I been causing myself over the years by shimming too tight? I assume only too much wear on bearings which in our hard no-till ground with SD fertilizer openers I almost always ruin the disk on the opposite side of the SD fertilizer opener several times before the one on the same side as the opener so I don't think shimming has been the limiting factor on my bearing life. The seed trench is better the tighter you shim right? Or if you go too tight does it start getting crazy again?
Edited by dpilot83 4/25/2017 10:11
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What are the disadvantages of shimming your openers too tight?
