R50?

What to look for? I know about the accelerator rolls and of course the rest of the cleaning parts but how do I tell if the helicals are worn? On this particular machine I'm not sure I trust the hour meter as the rear tires are worn very badly. The engine hours show just over 2000. How about the cage. I see it has a row of cross bars welded in the thresher area but it looks like that may be because of a foreign object entering. How would I know if the cage is good. Thickness? Rounded bar stock? The rotor rasp bars look decent. It has the narrow teeth though. Thanks.

I can almost guarantee the helicals will be worn badly enough to change out. They came with non-chrome helicals and you want to replace with chrome for longer life. Highest wear area is usually on the front side of the cage just beside where the rear feed chain enters the cage. Compare that area to the rear side of the cage and you'll see a BIG difference unless they've been replaced already. No serious drive changes over the years. Get a S/N for age. Real drive improvements came on 91 model R-52's by comparison.

Doubt very much the cage would need replacement from wear-out. It was chrome from the factory. Helicals were not. $1200-$1500 for a complete set of helicals with all hardware is my guess. The kit will be from an R-52 and is a little different but is an easy changeover.

R-50 already has "channel" type helicals.

C Trimpe Inc have bars, concaves and helicals for your machine. They build them with tungsten Carbide hard surface and last much, much longer...and the last I got were less than half AGCOs price. AGCOs chrome bars and concave have about .040" of chrome, it chips off easily it seems and then they wear out where chipped in NO time. The tungsten carbide is more than .125 thick closer to .250 from what I can tell and it does not seem to wear noticeably at all.