[AT] Thoughts on small combines, etc. -AC All-Crop 66

[Paul Waugh]

I enjoyed your comments
Paul
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chuck Bealke" <bealke at airmail.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 3:00 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] Thoughts on small combines, etc. -AC All-Crop 66


> Grant,
> 
> Yours and the related comments remind me of the All-Crop 66 I used in 
> the 50's.  It had the B engine with a magneto, and we pulled it with a 
> Farmall SH.  That versatile harvester would handle almost any kind of 
> crop seed you could think of.  For small jobs -  like six acres of 
> windrowed red clover I put through it once - it took more time to set 
> the screens and speeds for a new crop than it did to combine.  (I spit 
> black to grey for a day or two after that little field, because the 
> super fine black powder cloud from the dried seed head of the crop gets 
> inhaled at least a quarter of the time you are combining in a light 
> breeze.)  The canvas likes a dry and sun-free storage shed best, but 
> ours had a dirt floor, and for some reason the All-Crop was a powerful 
> magnet for burrowing woodchucks.  Many covered the high (like the 
> exhaust) air cleaner intake screen of the B engine with a cloth to 
> filter chaff.  The cloth would get a chaff beard in a season and I 
> sometimes wondered if it would ever catch fire from the straight exhaust 
> pipe not too far away; but it never did.
> 
> Although it did not hold a candle to the huge appetite of MG cars of 
> that time, even little combines eat parts.  The All-Crop was not too 
> hungry  - mostly belts, pulleys, thin, wide-link chains and cylinder 
> bars.  If I had one today, I would keep a little bottle of Lock-Tite 
> with me when preparing or working with it.   About the only problem (not 
> a biggie) with it was where the auger pieces join when you lower the 
> grain spout on the side.  That connection wore out as the combine aged, 
> and seemed aggravated by putting tough (not perfectly dry or clean) 
> wheat through it and raising and lowering the spout frequently - in 
> other words, normal operation.   Stay away from trees on road and field 
> edges, as the thin boards (called bats) on the reel like to snare 
> branches that sneak up to test them while you are busy driving and 
> watching the sickle bar, crop, etc.  As I recall, it is best to 
> disconnect the belt that drives the reel  when passing down tree-lined 
> roads to go between fields, as the fragile bats are a poor match for a 
> stubborn green branch not wanting to be part of the harvest.
> 
> Chuck Bealke
> Dallas, TX
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