Video Transcript: 

Hi everyone, it’s Christian for MacDon again. We're going to set the flex and the float on this brand new FD240 FlexDraper®.

Introduction to Flex and Float Adjustments

Flex and float adjustments are important to make sure that you are properly following the ground and that we're not missing any crop, and we don't end up with any excessive buildup. This is something that you can do on your own, it should take you less than an hour, and I recommend you check this at least once per season. Before you set your float wing balance, one thing to remember is that anything you do that adds or removes weight from the header, such as adding blades, removing them, adding or removing it up across auger. Those all will affect your floating wing balance. So, make sure if you're working on a brand-new header and you haven't put all your accessory kits on, wait till all the kits are on before setting and checking your float and wing balance.

Preparing for Adjustments

Before we begin our adjustments, we need to get our Set-It Right Multi-Tool that stored behind our end panel here. We open up our end panel and there is your Set-It Right Multi-Tool because we will be using this for our adjustments. If your combine has tires, you want to make sure that you've got the tire pressure set correctly. And we want to make sure that our feeder house is tilted to the mid position. Now when it comes to the header there's a couple things that we need to preset as well. Your header has a decal on it and it explains exactly what needs to be done and in what order it needs to be done. There are different panels that explain in what order to do the different adjustments. What's nice about this is it also tells you what kind of tools you need. So we need to lift the header ten inches off the ground which is 250mm. We need to make sure that the reel is all the way down and at position six. And we need to make sure that the header tilt is set to position D.

Wing and Float Locking Setup

Okay so for our next step we're going to follow panel number two here. We’re going to make sure that our wings are both locked and our float is unlocked and we want to make sure that our header is level. If we have any adjustable feeder house, we'll want to adjust that to make sure that that bubble is in the center of the level. Our next step is to make sure that the wings are locked and the float is unlocked. So I move the lever into the locked position and then our float down here gets moved from lock to unlock. Now we'll move to the other side of the header and do the same thing. We lock the wing and we unlock our float.

Fine-Tuning Float Settings

Now we're going to move on to panel three on our decal. We're now going to engage the float checking mechanism. For 2024 there's a slightly different float setting mechanism. So this may look slightly different to your header. But we still do the same procedure. We're going to use our Set-It Right Multi-Tool, and we engage that and we will pull this back. Now notice on this system ratchets so that if I can't do it in one smooth motion, I can reset my tool and pull it all the way. We need to do this on both sides of the header.

Now notice when I pull this over you will see this float indicator start to move. This is what we're going to use for our setting gauge. This is our indicator and we want to adjust until this indicator is lined up with number two. That's clearly spelled out in our setting decal on the header. Now before we start making any adjustments, we need to make sure that we rock the header two times just to get everything to settle up. So we don't need to swing this really hard. It's just a gentle sweep up and down. Now that our header has settled out, you can see that the indicator is in a slightly different position than it was before. So we need to adjust to position two. We're currently at position three. These top numbers indicate how heavy or light the float is. Four is heavy and zero is light. So, we need to make this header a little bit lighter. We’ll need a 15 millimeter wrench and a 30 millimeter wrench or socket. I'm going to use the wrench to undo our float locks, we only need to give this about half a turn. Just enough so that we can take the lock and rotate it forward. We're going to adjust the float springs, when we make this adjustment, we're always going to adjust these in pairs. So any adjustment that I make to this bolt I have to make the same adjustment to this bolt. We want to ensure that the springs are adjusted approximately the same amount. If your header is really far out of adjustment, you may want to start by taking a measurement of your spring before you start adjusting. It doesn't have to be super precise. We just want to make sure that they're reasonably close to each other. And for example, if this one was a much greater distance for we would give this one more turns than we would. But eventually we want to make sure that they are adjusted evenly and the springs are stretched the same amount. So, I'm going to adjust my spring. So I'm going to give this two full turns. Now my decal will tell me which direction I need to adjust this, so in this case I'm going to stretch the spring to make it lighter. Here's a little tip for you. If you're using a ratchet, you can use the hole on the socket as your reference guide to know that you've made a full turn. So in this case, I'm going to use a breaker bar. So I'm going to go once all the way around twice all the way around. And I will do the same thing to the other adjuster.

Now your indicator may not have changed, but after each adjustment we need to go back and rock that header again two times. Now you can see that our indicator is extremely close to position number two. We could fine tune this a little bit. But before we do we want to make sure that we adjust the other side. If the other side is significantly off it can affect this side. So don't make any fine-tune adjustments until you've adjusted both sets of springs.

So we will loosen these bolts, and our indicator there again is between 2 and 3. So we may need to make a slight adjustment. So again this header is still a little bit too heavy, so I'm going to adjust these springs in the same direction that I did on the other side. Let's see if one turn is enough. Again we need to rock the header after every adjustment. That’s pretty much bang on. So our other side hasn't changed enough for us to make a fine tuning adjustment. We can see now that our indicator is lined up pretty much exactly with number two. So the float is now set on this header. The last thing we need to do is we just need to return our locks back to our float springs and then release our float setting mechanism.

We will go to re-install our locks. Sometimes your bolt head may not line up with the hex on your float lock, so just give the bolt a slight turn until it lines up. This small adjustment is not enough to affect your float. Now we'll tighten the bolts so that the lock stay in place. To release the float lock we'll install our multi-tool on the blue cam to release the ratchet assembly and release the lock.

Note: FD2 Models Prior to 2024

Caution! For FD2 models prior to 2024, do not use the Set-It-Right Multi-Tool to release the float mechanism. Instead, lower the header to its lowest position from inside the combine. Follow the link in the description for the float adjustment process for older FD2 models.

Wing Balance Adjustment

All right, our float is now set. We're going to move on to the wing balance adjustment. We always like to check the float before we set the wing balance. To set our wing balance, come back over to the header and there is another instructional decal right here for us to follow. Panel number one tells us how to preset the header. This is the exact same as setting the float, so these are already done. Panel number two asks us again to check the bubble level. So that's already been preset and we're good there. We want to make sure that our wing is locked on the left-hand side. And the wing is unlocked on the right-hand side. And we need to make sure that the float is locked on both sides of the header. The wing is currently in the locked position, so I'll just move the lever to the unlock position. And now we'll lock the float. Remember we need to lock the float on both sides.

Checking Wing Balance with the Flex Checker

Now we're moving on to panel number three. And what we're going to do is we're going to hook up this flex checker assembly. And we're going to determine whether our wing is too heavy or too light. You’ll need to attach that to this little teardrop. And we want to make sure that we take these indicators, this is what's going to determine whether our wing is too heavy or too light, and you want to push them together. Get them as close to centered as possible. Our next step is to use our Set-It-Right Multi-Tool. And what we're going to do is we are going to position the wing into a full smile and a full frown. We're going to cycle through it two times, and then we're going to check the readings on these indicators. These will start to move apart and that will determine whether we need to make our wing lighter or heavier. So I put the tool on the center of it. And then I push all the way down there. You saw the wing fully unlock and then we go the opposite direction. Nice smooth sweeps. You don't want to do this too fast until you feel the flex checker hit its maximum limit. I return it back to center and now inspect your numbers on your indicator. So in our situation here, you can see that the bottom indicator is, at about three and a half and the top one is at about two and a half. If we refer back to our decal, this will now tell us which direction we need to adjust.

So if you look at the images on your decals, just match it up with what's on your flex checker. So the bottom one is further down than the top one, so this is our situation right here. To make this adjustment we're going to adjust this fulcrum right here to make the header lighter because right now it is too heavy and we need to make it a little bit lighter. To do that we're going to use a 24mm wrench. So this is the bolt that we're going to adjust to make our wing balanced. If your checker indicator is in the way you can undo the cable and move it out of the way. You can do this with a socket or a wrench, or if you have one available, I highly recommend a ratchet wrench. There is a spring lock on the assembly here, so when we install our wrench or socket, we need to make sure that we push back on it to make sure that there is free range. So now I want to adjust my fulcrum in this direction. And if you look really closely, you can see that it is starting to move towards the outside. It's a fairly coarse bolt, so often you don't need a lot of adjustment. Once you've made your adjustment and depending on how far out this could be, one turn and or it could be 5 or 6 turns. So now what we'll do is we will go back and redo the checking procedure, look up the flex, check your cable, pinch your indicators together and rotate it up and down two times with your Set-It-Right Multi-Tool.

So now you can see that our bottom indicator is at about three and a half. And our top one is about three. So they are getting closer to the same number top and bottom. So we adjusted it in the correct direction. We just need to adjust it a little bit more. If you find that it's gone in the opposite direction, if you've made it worse, you've just unfortunately turned your bolt in the wrong direction. Wrench back on, push it, and then disengage the lock. And we're pretty close. So we're only going to give this a fairly small adjustment, then recheck. Pinch the indicators together, and once again up and down two times.

All right. So now you can see that our indicators are both on three and a half. Now it doesn't matter which number you're on. You might find on your header they're both at number two or both number three or both at three and a half. The thing that's most important is that they're even. Because we want to make sure that it takes the same amount of force for the wing to raise up as it is for it to drop down. That way we're going to follow the ground as accurately as possible. Before we're done, we need to disconnect the flex checker cable and inspect the lock on the adjuster nut so you can see that the hex doesn't line up with the spring lock. So just give this again just a slight turn to engage the lock. Again, that small adjustment is not enough to affect your balance. So now we're going to move over and adjust the other wing. To do that we need to make sure that we lock this wing up. And if your wing locks and unlocks easily like that that's a very good sign. Even if you're just doing an inspection on your head or that your wing balance is extremely close, or to the other side of the head.

Adjusting Wing Balance on the Opposite Side

So we're going to go to this panel again, on this side of the header again there is the corresponding decal which tells us exactly what to do again. We're going to do the exact same adjustment. We're going to make sure that we unlock the wing. This one might be very close. And we're going to hook up our flex checker, just like we did on the other side. Pinch your indicators together and will install our Set-It-Right Multi-Tool and do the same thing, all the way up and down two times. And if we look at our indicators for two and a half and three and a half. So again, just like the other side, this wing is just a little bit too heavy. And we will need to adjust it in the exact same direction, so we're going to move our fulcrum outboard and recheck once again.

Finalizing Adjustments and Maintenance Tips

So we go back and we inspect our indicators. And you can see that they are both just below three. So that's pretty much perfect. Again, it's not important what number it's on between the left and the right side. You could be on different numbers as long as on each side the numbers are the same, you're good to go. To complete the procedure will undo our flex, check our cable and adjust our bolt to make sure that it locks up. And then we'll re lock our wing. We would normally complete this procedure by reinstalling our plastic covers, but we're not whatever. So that is how you do your flex and float adjustments on an FD2. In most cases, that should get you dialed in for, normal harvesting conditions.

For additional resources check out our Owners Resources or visit your local MacDon Deale