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

[Chuck Bealke]

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