Safety, be careful
Printed From: Unofficial Allis
Category: Allis Chalmers
Forum Name: Farm Equipment
Forum Description: everything about Allis-Chalmers farm equipment
URL: https://www.allischalmers.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=56933
Printed Date: 06 Sep 2025 at 1:11pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.10 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Safety, be careful
Posted By: jiminnd
Subject: Safety, be careful
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 10:06am
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I am sure you all know and have been told over and over but, neighbor burned up his combine yeserday doing corn, got thefield out before much loss, combine is total loss, probably more valu in cornhead than combine as is was a newer 12 row 20 inch head, just a be careful warning.
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Replies:
Posted By: Don(MO)
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 10:11am
Was the combine a John Deere?
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3 WD45's with power steering,G,D15 fork lift,D19, W-Speed Patrol, "A" Gleaner with a 330 corn head,"66" combine,roto-baler, and lots of Snap Coupler implements to make them work for their keep.
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Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 1:57pm
Y'know, I've developed a sickness that sends me walking the rows of boneyards. Most guys see scrap value, or a rare or missing part. But I see ghosts.
Amidst the ghosts, I see some very strange things. I see many more burned-out combines NOW, than say... from 25-30 years ago... and I ask myself why I see so many more old galvanized-steel machines with worn-off paint on the header, than newer machines... and that so many of the newer machines are covered in melted plastic and burned out wiring.
And something tells me that the plastic and wiring might have alot to do with it.
I could be wrong here, but in order to have fire, one must have fuel, oxygen, proper concentration, and a source of ignition. Back when everything was made from sheet-metal, the only sources of ignition, were hot engine parts, ignition, wiring, and static electricity.
Little has changed in that respect, however, engines are enclosed, many things made of plastic, and of course, turbodiesel power has thoroughly taken over.
Grandpa always told me to stop every few hours, and dig out ALL the latent field-trash and debris from nooks and crannies in the Gleaner. Fortunately, there weren't many... I think the designers took their time to make the machine hold as little dust and debris as possible... and where it DID accumulate, they made it easy to remove. Next, they were very careful to keep the power unit and electricals away from areas that would cause problems with debris and cleaning.
Last, but certainly not least... everything being made mostly of sheet-metal, would prevent the buildup of static electricity. Plastic, being a dielectric, becomes quite a capacitor, and all the material passing by, and sitting on big rubber tires, turns the combine into a huge 30-row VanDeGraaf generator... and eventually, that static electricity has to discharge SOMEWHERE. In tin machines, it would simply pass right through all the metal... and every so often we'd bounce the nose off the ground, and it'd discharge a little.
I think our newer machines, with all their wonderful teflon and plastic bodywork, electronics and turbochargers, can chew up so much more field, develop so much more static electricity, and not bounce off the dirt so much better, that we wind up with burning machines.
Or it just may be me, walkin' through a machine graveyard, and seeing ghosts.
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Ten Amendments, Ten Commandments, and one Golden Rule solve most every problem. Citrus hand-cleaner with Pumice does the rest.
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Posted By: Ted in NE-OH
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 2:57pm
I wonder if loose or worn belts contribute to fires if they are poorly maintained?
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CA, WD, C, 3 Bs, 2 Gs, WC, I-400, 914
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Posted By: allischalmerguy
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 3:38pm
Dave,
There was a lot of common sense that old designers had. I think, but maybe I am not right, it used to be you had to work your way up in engineering and have experience in many companies...I don't know that that is always the case now. I just see so much built anymore and I go why did they do it that way! What happened to common sense? I think you have something there about all the plastic!
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It is great being a disciple of Jesus! 1950 WD, 1957 D17...retired in Iowa,
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Posted By: darrel in ND
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 4:23pm
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several years ago a couple of neighbors were helping each other out combining sunflowers. One had an older Gleaner L2, the other a 2188 CaseIH which was brand new at the time. With the 2188 they had to stop at the end of each pass and blow the machine off with a leaf blower in order to keep it from burning up, and even then it had a lot of smoldering hot spots. The old L2 got biown off at the end of each day and never had a fire. Guess that just kind of supports what Dave Kamp said. Darrel
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Posted By: DaveKamp
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 8:45pm
Ted, I'd say there's a fair chance... particularly belts that use woven steel core.
I have friends who do intrinsic safety engineering (explosion-proof environments, etc), and they're constantly dealing with static buildup in various types of equipment... and ANYTHING can turn into an intrinsic-safety environment headache. I know that various manufacturers worked on designs where the steel belting actually extended to the outer edge of one or the other side of the belt, for the purpose of discharging static INTO the drive sheaves... and of course, then you have the situation of using some sort of contact or brush to direct static electricity from the rotating shaft to the chassis... so that it doesn't discharge THROUGH the bearings... anyone who's had U-joints and axle pinion bearings go bad due to a poor ground-strap in a car knows what electric current through a ball, needle, or roller-bearing can do.
Guy- you're right about common sense... the foundations of good design REQUIRE common sense, but oftentimes, the side-effect of a given design sneaks in and bites us in the butt when we're not looking. I've had the honor to work with many, many 'OLD SCHOOL' engineers, and found that oftentimes, designs that seem incredibly simple, are actually much deeper, and more complex than we see... and that the complexity is not in the components or mechanisms, but in how everything was executed, from the casting, through the machining, to the finished product. Most guys look at the inside of an engine block, and see a lump. I see where flying oil lands... and runs down along a ridge, and that lump directs it to fall in such a way that the crankshaft counterweight doesn't catch and flail it all over again... instead, it falls to the pan... it's that kind of introspective engineering that yields a truely clever, and artfully simple design, thanks to some very complicated forethought.
Darrel- the thing about the L2... is that even IF it had accumulated enough fodder for a fire, such a fire likely wouldn't have done any substantial damage or spread elsewhere in the machine. I don't remember which Gleaner my grandfather had... IIRC it had a 292 Chevy six... but I know that I got the task of giving it a thorough lookin' over, and dug out any trash that accumulated. Most often, the trash was in the cab! ;-)
Now... the other consideration, is that we're not harvesting 8-10 rows at a time with these machines anymore. The guy that works the farm around my place has a header that will knock down my mailbox AND my neighbor-across-the-street's mailbox, in one fell swoop... that equates to a whole lot more static, and a whole lot more trash, and a whole lot more dust that's being processed in a given minute. That ups the ante in ANY book.
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Ten Amendments, Ten Commandments, and one Golden Rule solve most every problem. Citrus hand-cleaner with Pumice does the rest.
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Posted By: jiminnd
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 9:40pm
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Yes it was a john deere, one of the first 9600s I remember, haven't heard anything but it may have just been a bad bearing but looked at it today and don't know if they will ever know.
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Posted By: SteveM C/IL
Date Posted: 16 Sep 2012 at 11:06pm
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A guy on the combine page says sunflowers will burn down any brand.
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Posted By: SHAMELESS
Date Posted: 17 Sep 2012 at 1:37am
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as of last year the average loss of combines to fire were 368 (nation wide). i think the manuf. of combines want all the insurance money they can build! a JD combine takes approx 12 minutes to become fully engulfed in flames, a CNH takes approx 18 minutes. AGCO...i dunno. JD places their diesel tank right behind the engine, that's where most of their fires start...and it's a poly tank...so they know that that will fuel the fire for a complete burn! have also seen alot of blackened CAT combines just in our area!
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