why would my sickle do this

I am trying to put sunflower pans onto my 324 gleaner head, and the cutter bar has some strange issues, that I had better remedy before I put em on. First off, the right hand end of the sickle, for about the last two feet, takes a strange bend forward. It is severe enough, that where the bar passes through the guards in this area, the bar is ground almost back to center, where the sickle section bolts go through it, and the end guards are almost chewed away, because of the sickle bar wearing on em. Then, on the plates that go under the hold downs, and are supposed to be such that the back of the sickle sections ride on top of them, and the rear of the sickle is supposed to be back against em......well all of them plates to right of center of the header, have the front corners completely wore off, gone. And all of them to left of center of the header, are shiney, from wear, but a far cry from being worn away to nothing. And if I were to put new wear plates on the right side, they hold the sickle up to wear the sections would be grinding on the upper part of the guard, instead of riding tightly on the lower part of the guard, like they are supposed to, in order to cut good. The header is not bent up or beat to heck at all. still straighter than an arrow. I am thinking something is shimmed where it shouldn't be, or not shimmed where it should be. The header cut wheat good the last two years, but just about anything will cut wheat straw. Any ides? If I can ever find this header in the on line parts books, that'll really help. Darrel

yep sounds like not a cheap fix. but new sickle and gaurds plates will makenit cut nice. make sure to adjust is correctly. mine was all screwy when i got it, spent a whole weekend making it right.   got my parts from schimdt and sons (kansas? i think?) parts guy is great. always makes me laugh.   

if your sickle is bent, it's gonna wear and break things, and break itself eventually! it's not gonna do you any good that way. get a new sickle and supporting parts before you really start cussing!

So sighting down the guards the header is straight? If so, good news, if not, probably better keep figuring out what is tweaked.

whew....what else haven't you paid attention to? lol

shameless (ne) wrote: do I need to come up there and look around?

you certainly do need to. Bring up my rake from Shelby Iowa, and my motors from Valentine Nebraska on your way, please. Seems I'll never get that stuff rounded up myself. And if you come soon enough, you can help with my sunflower harvest. Darrel