washing combines

anyone wash their combines? I've been thinking of washing up the old L2 for my grad party, being as its my pride and joy and biggest investment... dad says it will cause bearing failure, but they wash their rotary deeres all the time. id think if you washed it, then greased it and ran it for a little bit it would be fine

A lot of combines get a bath.I would think how the wand is used has more to do with brg trouble than the washing it's self.

the poeple that keep there equipment clean are the ones that keeps equipment in the best shape and have the least amount of troble  because it gets fixed before it is totaly broke down

We never really wash ours. I understand though how it is your pride and joy and you want to take good care of it. In fact, our L3 still has the chalk delivery numbers written on the header! It's never really gotten that wet I guess. We always just blow it off really good with the air compressor. Just do what you already said. Wash it, grease it, and run it a little. Then do the obvious, just walk around and see if there's anything abnormal, check the Tattletale, etc. I think you'll be fine, just don't blast the bearings with the wand. Post before and after pics too! 

Our combine sadly isn't a Gleaner, but we use a hose on it (Not a high pressure wand), and an air compressor. We've yet to have that cause a problem. I'd just be careful around the bearings.

High pressure air only.

We bought a combine that had 200 hours on it that had been washed with a pressure washer. I changed bearings in it that the previous combine had 3000 hours on and had not been changed before it had 800 hours on it, oh and you don't get any warranty from Gleaner when you have to change those bearings with such a low time on them either.

This may sound stupid, but are Gleaners galvanized? I know I should probably know this, but the old ones aren't painted. They're just bare gray metal. What keeps it from rusting? I just don't see rusty Gleaners.

Try Blue Max. You can by it at Kmart. Try it on a small area. The old galvanized will shine like chrome.

I wash my L2 at least twice a year if not three times. Once after wheat due to my severe allergies and once after corn so it's nice and clean for winter. After I'm done washing it in either leave it outside in the hot sun or put it in the shop and turn the furnace up nice and high and turn all the fans on to dry it out, then I grease the combine and run it for a minute. I usually spend all day washing it to do a thorough job and use hot (as hot as my washer will go) water on the galvanized tin to clean it up and that brings the shine back somewhat. I don't get any water in the rad or alternators but use compressed air to blow them out. I try to avoid a hard blast of water at bearings but certainly don't worry about lightly spraying water at them and getting them wet, and I don't find it reduces the life of the bearings or anything else.

CrestonM wrote: This may sound stupid, but are Gleaners galvanized? I know I should probably know this, but the old ones aren't painted. They're just bare gray metal. What keeps it from rusting? I just don't see rusty Gleaners.

Sometime in the last several years they started painting Gleaners instead of using galvanize.All conventionals were galvanized.