Just wanted to say ive really enjoyed reading this entire thread over the past month. Here in southwestern Pa my cousin, my uncle, and i farm for the heck of it on our grandfathers 200 acre farm. We grow corn and soybeans and have a 4420 combine and jd 4250 as our big plowing tractor lol. It really is interesting to see what it is like to farm for real.

"Atlas" wrote:

Hi your pictures get more dramatic with the marvelous engineering feets of water conservation. one question the levelling hydraulics on the JD harvesters are they manually operated as you travel or are they automically operated by the machine. Thanks N H F. Atlas

They are automatic, Atlas, with a manual override. There are two speeds in the
auto position.....a slower speed for gradual slope changes, and a faster speed if the slope changes more rapidly.......and for emergencies. The manual overide uses the high speed of the leveler. A switch selects between 'auto' and manual.
A separate switch moves the machine either left or right......if the first switch is
in 'auto' and lay the machine over to the right (the machine's right) like this:



When you release the override switch, the 'auto' function brings the separator back to level.........like this;



Had the first switch been set to 'manual' ( essentially off for the automatic circuit) then the separator would have stayed in the last position.

Here is one example .......unloading on the go here, with the grain cart to the
uphill side. The operator had to switch off the 'auto' setting, lay the machine
over to the right a bit to allow the cart to move under the unload tube. He
then manually layed the machine back to the left some. He left the 'auto'
setting off while unloading so that the combine didn't level into the cart while
unloading. When done & the cart cleared out, he returned the control to the
'auto' setting:





Another trick is to use the override to 'lead' the combine when turning.
Heading across a slope leveled to the left as seen here:



When turning to go back where the machine will be leveled the other way,
you can pull kill the auto setting and start the machine leveling to the right
before the auto setting normally would. You 'get out ahead' of the leveler that way, then return to the auto setting. This was more important on the
smaller older machines like the 95-H.....the bigger wider stance machines like
the 9760 seen here or NIF's 6622's are a lot safer to turn and it's pretty
standard to leave the machine in the auto setting. Still nice to have the option however. Here the 9760 has turned around and heads back, leveled
the other direction for the return trip.

NIF:
What are we doing on the side of the 7722 that you found on the dealers lot??
A counter weight device that just screams 'farmer made' on the left side. I am guessing a link to the chaffer to change the setting up hill to downhill ??????
No such device on my neighbors stock 7722:

NIF, you might want to mention the difference in leveling devices over the past years. You have two great examples of the Swing Frame as sent out by JD and the Hillco frames of today.

JD a few years back decided to get out of the (What they called Hillbilly) leveling machines because they built only about 150 a year.

This has been a great thread. I wonder if there is some way to publish it.

More great pictures, are there any problems with the crop augering up hill in the header or feeding in the feederhouse on such steep slopes?
Jim

"Jim wrote:

More great pictures, are there any problems with the crop augering up hill in the header or feeding in the feederhouse on such steep slopes?
Jim

I have had 'em on as about as steep as it gets with very little trouble:



A shot of one of the neighbors....down hill .......and giving the edge a little room
so as not to slide off......



Nearly at the max on the leveler for the 1670 (48%) here. Note the left side
driver.....the ladder had to be modified for the hillside machines to allow for
this.



Leveled the other way......last step off of the ladder is now a doozie..... ........feeding just fine......Kirby helping me keep an eye on
things;

"Atlas" wrote:

Hi your pictures get more dramatic with the marvelous engineering feets of water conservation. one question the levelling hydraulics on the JD harvesters are they manually operated as you travel or are they automically operated by the machine. Thanks N H F. Atlas

Visual aid time Atlas. All of the leveling systems in use today are electric over
hydraulic. On a 6622 like NIF's, or my old 95-H or 6602, a water/antifreeze solution is used...water runs down hill as the separator goes out of level...
trips a micro switch which turns on the hydraulic valves that level the machine.
The first automatic control for hillside machines was developed by Ray Hanson
& installed on pull type machines ( most pulled by yellow paint) His control box used mercury. Same idea.....machine level, everything is off. As the machine starts to tilt, the mercury in the control board moves to the low side (of the board) and completes a circuit, a solenoid opens up the proper hydraulic valve & the machine levels. Here is a shot of a Hanson control box.....happens to be off of a IH 1470, buts basically the same Mercury board that Ray invented wayback when:



Since it's from a 1470 ( with two speed leveling) there are 4 contact points,
two on each side. When the separator tilts a little ( say to the right) the first
contact trips on , which opens up the valves to the low speed side of the
leveler. If the slope change is greater, the second set of contacts is triggered, and the high side (faster) side of the leveler kicks on. So, lets
say it triggers the fast side.....you will feel the machine level pretty rapidly.
As it comes back to level, the fast side contacts go off, and the slow side
finishes the leveling. The early versions had only the fast side ( one contact oneach side) and they could rock the operator around pretty good over the
coarse of a long day. So......the two speed set up was developed to smooth
things out.

Compare the shot of the board above to this one......I tilted the box to show
how it works. In this shot, the Mercury has flowed to the right had is completing the circuit. In the center of the Mercury board is a reservoir for
extra Mercury.....you could adjust the total system speed by adding or subtracting the amount of Mercury in the active part of the system. Too little
Mercury in, and the leveler would be slow( takes more time for the Mercury
to reach the switches) Too much Mercury in, and the leveler becomes over
sensitive....it hunts back & forth trying to keep the machine level. So, the
adjustment on the Mercury level turns in to a Goldilocks deal.........
.....has to be just right.



I had one of Ray's boxes on a IH 160 pull type that I pulled back in the mid
70's.



The control box operated the rack & pinion leveler on the combine ( ie, no
hydraulics) but the Mercury board was virtually the same. The first SP
combine that we had was an Gleaner AH ( circa 1958) The leveler control
on it used the same exact control board.

Atlas- 98J answered that one really well, here is a cab shot of one of the 6622s right below the key you will see the leveling switches, one selects manual or automatic, the other will level the machine right or left manually.

The only time I usually touch it when harvesting is unloading in the trucks on a hillside, nice to be able to lean down to get closer from the uphill side or in some cases (did this alot with the shorter 95s but not so much the 22s) from the downhill side I will switch to manual and bump it to the right to keep the unloading auger from hitting the truck.

But usually you can cruise right along and let the automatic leveler do its job and keep the separator level to maximize cleaning capacity.

Jim- usually in good wheat there is no problem feeding going across or down hills. Cutting lentils or really short thin wheat there can be a problem especially going downhill, basically there just isnt enough material there for the reel to grab to pull it uphill to the auger, and when cutting lentils they will sometimes get cut off and moved up the pea bar and then fall out of the header forward if going down a hill. The newer headers starting with the 222 on the 6622s have less problems than the older small auger headers on 95s and 02s.

98J- I actually didnt get a chance to look at that device on the 7722 as I had been looking at other things and just walked up beside it quickly and snapped that picture and it wasnt until I got it on the computer that I noticed it. I would suspect you are right in your thinking as I have seen something similar before on a different machine.

Hi guys thanks for the very informative details on the leveling of the harvesters on up and down terain.who would have thought mercury can stabilize machines under such conditions.I bet you have to keep the mice out of those box of tricks in the winter. Its nice to see tecnology even gives the dog a more comfortable ride. Atlas