A little corn picker repair

One of the husking rollers on my picker had gotten so worn it wouldn't pull the husks off, which caused them to hang up and plug the husker. So I decided to rebuild the one causing the problems. The hardest part was getting the bolts out of the bearing holder. Had to reach behind that channel to get a wrench on the nut.




Worse yet, it was all deep in the wagon elevator.



Wouldn't have been a bad job if I had an extra elbo and wrist in my left arm. Lol. Eventually I got it, then everything else came apart easy. The old rubber was a series of discs that looked like they were cut from a tire. These are some old nes.



So to replace them I used a hole saw on some tires to make discs.




To cut the square hole I used a thin wall square tube and sharpened one end. A few whacks with a mall cut a nice square hole.






In this ic you can see the size difference. You can also see how the old ones had worn smaller than the end pieces which kept the rubber from grabbing the husks properly.




Took over 100 discs to redo the roller. Looks like it's going to work well now.






Hopefully will get my corn picked this weekend with it.

Herr is a short video of it rolling.
How it rolls.

Great job.

Very slick way to punch square holes! Nice going.

Very ingenious. Great job there.
Thanks for sharing, GG Wes

Nice! Need to get around to that on my New Idea.

Paul

Quite a few years ago there was a fellow who used to rebuild those. I'm thinking he was in northern Iowa. He also cut the pieces out of old tires.
55 50 Ron and I had him re-do a set for a picker at Farmamerica. The guy has since passed away. I'm not sure if anyone ever took over that business.

That's impressive. Seems like we picked thousands of acres with a one row New Idea. We had the same issue, I think about 40 years ago. NI dealer had those tire sections you could buy, and complete rolls. I couldn't see how we could get the sections pressed tight on the shaft. I think it was round, not sure. Anyhow, we bought the new roll assemblies. I believe it was the later 80's that we quit picking, when I put up a drying bin, and bought a second, little old combine.

Just think how much easier it would have been had they welded the nuts onto the channel!

Please report back on how it works.

When we moved to the new shop, they dumpstered lots of new old stock New Idea picker parts. Made me just about cry.

As they say, Necessity Is the Mother of Invention.

Great job!

Yes Rich, I remember that. He had a nice shop set up in his garage in the little Iowa town of Duncombe just a little east of Ft Dodge. Pretty sure he advertised in some farming magazines.

jon f mn said:

One of the husking rollers on my picker had gotten so worn it wouldn't pull the husks off, which caused them to hang up and plug the husker. So I decided to rebuild the one causing the problems. The hardest part was getting the bolts out of the bearing holder. Had to reach behind that channel to get a wrench on the nut.

Worse yet, it was all deep in the wagon elevator.

Wouldn't have been a bad job if I had an extra elbo and wrist in my left arm. Lol. Eventually I got it, then everything else came apart easy. The old rubber was a series of discs that looked like they were cut from a tire. These are some old nes.

So to replace them I used a hole saw on some tires to make discs.

To cut the square hole I used a thin wall square tube and sharpened one end. A few whacks with a mall cut a nice square hole.

In this ic you can see the size difference. You can also see how the old ones had worn smaller than the end pieces which kept the rubber from grabbing the husks properly.

Took over 100 discs to redo the roller. Looks like it's going to work well now.

Hopefully will get my corn picked this weekend with it.

Herr is a short video of it rolling.
How it rolls.

Click to expand...

Well done, using your head and some scraps and made it work,