Video Transcript: 

Hi, everyone. It's Chris from MacDon again. I want to talk today a little bit about auger fingers and flighting. So our MacDon combine headers are designed to work on pretty much all the major brand combines. Now one of the issues is different combines have different size feeder houses and they have different width openings. To compensate for that on our auger we have removable flighting and auger fingers. And you can see that this one has some room for some additional fingers. This combine header now is set up for a Case IH and New Holland (CNH) configuration. So that is what we call the medium configuration, and what that means is it's matched to as close as possible to the size of the opening of the feeder house. From above here you can see the opening of the feeder house and look at the position of the opening compared to where the floating ends. This matched to basically draw the crop towards the center of the auger and then get it to the feeder hose. Our flighting will end just slightly past the inboard side of the feederhouse.

Generally you don't want to feed towards the outside. That's where the chains are and sometimes that can cause issues. This is designed to basically get your crop to about here and here on your feeder house. That is the factory configuration, and if that's working for you, that's fine, that'll work for most harvesting conditions. But again, sometimes you get some abnormal conditions or you get a slightly heavier or lighter crop. So you can customize this if you want. What's common on the wide body combines, these would be your flagship CNH, CLAAS Lexions for sure, and your Deere S-Series. Those are all medium configurations, but it's not uncommon to take off some of the flighting.

As you can see, this is a medium configuration, so it has four pieces of both on floating. We can't see the other one that's underneath here, and it has 22 fingers installed. It's not uncommon sometimes to take off one set of flighting. What that'll do is that'll make the crop that's entering the feederhouse a little bit wider. This is extremely popular on CLAAS Lexion on combines. Then what you can also do is you can add additional fingers. Again, this isn't something you have to do but if you want to experiment a little bit to try and get that last 10% of performance, or if you have some slightly abnormal conditions, this can help with your feeding.

If this was, for example, a Gleaner which has a very small feederhouse, we would have still four pieces of floating, but they would be much longer. You can see here there's another spot where floating can attach. So now we would probably have flighting ending somewhere around here. And we would reduce the number of fingers for that configuration.

We’ve moved over to this auger display just to reinforce what we talked about earlier. So on this auger right here, this side is configured as a medium configuration, notice that there's two sets of lighting and there is room for additional fingers outside the flighting. Typically where your flighting ends is where your fingers begin, but it doesn't have to be that way. But this would be your standard configuration for the majority of your what we call wide body combines. Now this configuration over here is what we call the wide configuration. It's got one piece of bolt on floating, and you can see the other one has been removed. And if you look, our fingers we have additional fingers on this side of the header. You would never run half your combine half wide and half medium, at least I'm not aware of anybody that ever did that.

Typically if we're going to remove flighting, we're going to add fingers, and if we're going to add flighting then we would remove fingers. If we wanted to convert this wide back to a medium, we would install another piece of flighting at this location right here. Then these fingers would then be outside of the fighting, we would remove them and put plugs in.

You can find this information in your operators manual or on MacDon.com under Support, then Operators Manuals. Then select your product type, product series and model document type, then language. Here you can find various manuals, quick card parts, catalogs and kit installation instructions and assembly instructions.

For example, our auger is already configured wide, maybe it came that way, maybe somebody adjusted it for you, this could be a used header, and we don't like the configuration. So we want to go back to the medium configuration. We'll have to acquire another piece of flighting. There's a couple of plugs here that you would move, and we would put just carriage head bolts in here, and we would bolt that in place. But now we've got some fingers that are outside of the flighting. So basically what's going to happen is we want all of our crop conveyed to this point or further inboard. These fingers are now going to try and stuff some of the crop in here. And if there's no opening, it's just going to pack up against your feeder house. So we're going to remove some of these fingers.

The process to remove the fingers is, fairly easy as long as you can get your hand in here. Now, on this cutaway, we've got some additional holes that make this a little bit easier, but all of the augers have access plates. So there would normally be a plate over here. And when you remove the access plate now you have got access to your fingers.

We pull the clip out of the finger, and now the finger can be pulled out. Now when we rotate over, you can see now. So now we've got a couple of finger guides with no fingers in there. We need to install plugs in here otherwise we're going to get a lot of debris inside the auger. To remove the finger guide and install a plug you are going to need a 10mm socket. So there is our finger guide, and we are going to replace it with a solid plug. You can acquire all this stuff from MacDon Performance Parts. If you buy either a guide or a plug I do not believe it comes with these little t clips. You can reuse the ones that were on the original part, or you can purchase new ones as well.

Again, you'll have the reach in through the access hole, then snug these up. Now be careful not to overtighten these, because you can break the plastic. If you over-torque, what you can do is you can actually crack the holder and either the plug or the guide, and then the guide or the plug can fall out. Now you've got a finger that's riding directly on steel and that can definitely cause you some issues. So we will torque this to spec.

Now, if I have the medium configuration and I want to convert it to wide, well, then I would be taking off this piece of lighting and I would be adding some additional fingers. So in that case I would remove the plug then install a guide and finger. We can reuse the existing hardware if necessary, but the new hardware will come with some Loctite Pre-applied to it. If you want to apply some medium strength thread locker to it. Go right ahead.

Again, we go through the access hole. I reach in. Here’s a bit of a side note - you want to keep an eye on your finger guides. They are a wearable item, and they will eventually need to be changed. This area will wear out sometimes if you let it go too far, will actually wear all the way through, and it'll start to wear into the steel. So keep an eye on your finger guide, it's sort of an annual maintenance check. Have a look at those if they're getting a little bit too worn, it's time to get some new ones. Again, we'll torque that.

All right. Now, when it comes to installing a finger inside your auger, there are additional finger holders that are unused, so they're already there. The auger can support a maximum of 30 fingers. There are enough holders to install a finger in every location. So if you had the medium configuration, and you want to switch to wide, you'll only have to buy some additional fingers, but you'll be removing flighting. So there's really not a whole lot to buy. You can buy the finger and the guide as a kit if you don't have them. Look it up in your parts manual and you'll find it. So you'll get a guide, a finger, and the hardware.

Now to install the finger, you'll have to go once again through an access hole. Get your arm in there and install it from the inside out. So we insert the finger. Line it up with the finger holder. Notice that there is a spot, there's we need to line that up. And then put your push pin in. We recommend to put the spring clip in so that it's, going with the same direction of motion. That way, if any debris gets in here, the clip will try and push itself through. If you put the clip in backwards, it's possible that you could get some debris in there.

Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.

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