Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | Jim in Sask - 10/3/2008 00:13
Sorry to hear of you troubles Jon. One thing that might be worth looking into for your mother is something that my mother had in the seniors' home where she lived. It was a device that they wore either like a wristwatch or a necklace. If the person had problems they would press the button on it which would activate a distress line (I believe the base for it was in Calgary). The operator could speak to the old person or, if there was no response, call preset contact numbers to alert a family member or caregiver of trouble. One time my mother fell and the operator called both the seniors' home staff and me that there was a problem. I'm sure a similar system would be available down there - might need an extra phone line or something but it would be well worth the cost.
Scary to see the broken axle on the combine. A couple years ago a fellow from Missouri using the handle 1206SWMO had a picture of the right axle on his 1420 busted off. Didn't realize others had the same thing happen. Is the stripper header quite heavy compared to a regular header?
Thanks jim.
I have seen those portable help call devices for the elderly advertised, and will look into something like that for mother. The sad thing was that she had a cordless phone with her when she fell, but in the shock of what happened to her, she totally forgot she had it within reach.
Yes, those older AF combines had very little trouble with the axles up through the 60 (IE 1460) series, but they tell me the 1480 uses the same axle which finally fails after years of an 80 series machines weight.
The Shelbourne headers are really well built, the metal is thick, so a 24 ft CX 72 like ours weighs 4800 pounds. It always makes me grit my teeth a bit as we hook that header, the front tires do a 4 inch squat before the header comes off the ground. The heavy header, full grain tank and a quick turn on rough ground finally broke the back of that 20+ year old shaft. Now if only they had added a little more steel in the radius where axle meets flange, this would not happen so easily.
The 2188 has much beefed up final drives that bolt right on the earlier machines, but are not common or cheap in the salvage yards. If I find a set though, that conversion might just happen. |
Second worst day of what has been a miserable harvest.
