Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | After reading your post, I decided to check out my 9650STS. I checked the stationary idlers and they seemed OK.
As I reapplied the belt tensionor, the pivot broke. It had been cracked for some time and so the break was inevitable. Just as well it happened today as we were rained out.
I checked with a local shop about repairing the broken pivot. After looking it over we decided that I better go for new.
Checking through the parts department at the local dealership I became quite confused. My 9650 is relatively old and apparently several changes have been made in the chopper drive and eventually the chopper itself.
My idlers are the 5" diameter type (there were two types of these). Later combines used a similar style but it is 8" in diameter. Possibly the size was increased to accomodate a larger bearing and turn slower. This might explain why you had two failures in two years.
Also it appears that there is an external support for the pivot that mine does not have. I ordered this and it will be interesting to see what this support looks like. The parts book would have us believe that these supports were on all models.
When I went to check on the combine for the idler situation I noticed that I had a completely flat steering tire. Both my steering rims have been welded in the past. Last year I got a new rim, expecting a failure. Yesterday both tires were low and I reinflated them. I called the tire shop for a swap to the new rim. When I returned to the combine I noticed that the other side was very low also so I called the Deere dealer to order another new rim and told the tire guy to wait until tommorrow. The original rims were only welded to center hum in four places, the new rim style is much stronger which apparently is necessary.
Concerning corn field fires, my nephews just had one last Saturday. This one started due to corn stalks on a hot exhaust on an old truck. Fortunately the wind was relatively calm then unlike the day before.
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STS chopper bearing failure and fire
