MF Paddle System Mounted On IH Combine Feederhouse

MF Paddle System Mounted on IH Combine feederhouse COMBINES Accessories 15-5-11 "My feederhouse paddle system has more capacity and should last much longer than my combine's original feederhouse conveyor chain," says Ed Feil, Golden Prairie, Sask., who removed the feeder-house paddles from a 1983 Massey Ferguson 852 combine and mounted them on his 1981 International Harvester 1482 Axial Flow pull-type combine. "In 1982 I traded my Massey Ferguson 751 pull-type combine for the 1981 IH combine and discovered that the feeder-house conveyor system didn't have enough capacity," says Feil. "Also, be-cause the feederhouse conveyor chain was short and fast moving, chain life was very short. The chain and sprockets would have lasted only about three years before I would have had to replace them so I decided to install a Massey paddle system. New paddles and parts would have been cost prohibitive so I found an 852 Massey pull-type combine at a salvage yard and stripped the paddles off. The combine had been rolled and had harvested very few acres. I paid $1,000 for the feederhouse paddle system which was hardly any more than the cost to replace the IH feederhouse chain. "The same paddle system could be used on IH 1460 and 1480 combines, as well as the newer 16 Series Case-IH combine, with a few minor modifications. The paddle system is extremely quiet. All drives are on the outside of the feeder-house so they last longer and are easier to adjust. Feederhouse capacity has in-creased considerably." Fell cut the internal supports out of the IH feederhouse and replaced them with 1/ 2 by 5-in. gussets on the outside of the rear bearing housings. He also welded the front of the feederhouse solid which keeps the header from tilting forward or back-ward. "I use the combine only for picking up swathed grain so welding the feeder-house into one position was no problem," says Feil. The next problem was installing the three shafts that carry the paddles. The shafts were originally spaced 14 in. apart on the Massey combine but 12 in. spacing worked fine on the IH. He used the original IH feederhouse driveshaft at the rear and then installed two additional shafts. The Massey feederhouse and shafts were 3 1/2 in. wider than the IH feederhouse so Feil had to rework the drive end of the shafts and install spacers. He also cut 3 1/ 2 in. off the paddles. After the shafts were installed all the internal parts were bolted in place. The drive sprockets from the Massey combine were put back on their shafts, except for the rear shaft where Feil welded on larger 30-tooth sprockets. "The rear beater shaft on the Massey combine ran at a higher speed than the front beater shafts and I wanted to run them all at the same speed," says Feil. The final step was to make chain tightener sprockets. Feil made sliding brackets for them out of angle iron. Contact FARM SHOW Followup, Ed Feil, Box 153, Golden Prairie, Sask. Canada SON OYO (ph 306 666-4807).

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