In Reply to: Combine Fires posted by JerBear on February 14, 2002 at 16:22:44:

We had a JD 9600 catch fire last fall, we were cutting some down milo with a row crop head. Inside the threshing chamber just above the beater there is a shaft that comes through the combine to the other side (one of the main drives) there is a plastic shield that covers the shaft, but is open on both ends on the outside of the chamber. apparantly dust and fodder had built up over the years in there and I guess the friction started it on fire. It wasn't a big fire but had to call Fire Dept to put it out, the smoke and fumes were to toxic to go inside to extinguish ourselves. This happened in the evening, the next morning my brother and I crawled inside and found out what had happened. We took a hacksaw and cut what was left of the shield out and it had also burnt a rubber curtain that was up in front against the sheet metal. after removing that we decided to remove the first hanging curtain to allow the fodder coming out of the beater to be thrown back further. After several more days of cutting we went back in and inspected things and found that it was doing ok no build up on the ledge or around the shaft. I am satisfied that this solved our problem. We were back to cutting the next morning. My neighbors are on the fire dept. They run a gleaner combine, so now it is known as "Sparky the green combine", just a little neighborly humor. hope this helps.