The end of harvest doesn’t mean putting the equipment in the shed and leaving it there until next harvest. It’s important for next year’s harvest startup to do your equipment inspections as you come out of the field.
“Note the repairs that need to be made and go on and be proactive on getting those repairs made so that the time just doesn’t slip away as it seems to, and you get down the road toward next harvest, and then next thing you know you’re two to three, four weeks out from harvest and your machine has not been looked at or inspected. Now you’re in a panic. You’re in a rush to try to get the work done,” says Daniel Stansbury, General Service Manager at AgRevolution.
Stansbury says there are real advantages to beginning the inspection before your machines are pressure washed. He says blow off all the surface dirt, but don’t do the high-pressure cleaning until later.
“We love for the machines to actually be dirty. We’re looking for evidence of leaks and seeps that could be washed away by a pressure washer. We’re looking for things such as belt wear and your normal issues, belt wear, bearings that have failed, all of your wear parts of course, rasp bars, chopper knives, all of your chains, we inspect them thoroughly.”
He adds a deeper inspection will include running the machine for 15-20 minutes to get the bearings hot, inspect them, and then determine if they are beginning to fail. AgRevolution will also run a diagnostic report.
“We’ll hook up the laptop and look for any trouble codes. We will look for any pattern in logged fault codes that may or may not be active, but we’ll spend a little time looking at the histogram of when faults occurred and try to proactively fix those issues even if they’re not currently present or active.”
Stansbury’s inspection details are part of their Agco PM360 detailed plan which provides the customer with the notes the service technicians create during the process. Hear more in the full interview with Daniel Stansbury here:
AgRevolution has seven locations western Kentucky, southern Indiana and southern Illinois. Click this link to fill out a service request at their website.
