A broken combine belt is worth having nightmares over. That’s especially true if it happens on a beautiful, sunny afternoon and you don’t have a replacement belt handy.

That’s why the display that included worn, broken and frayed belts of various descriptions in the John Deere exhibit at the 2018 Farm Progress Show was eye-catching.

According to the fine print on the display, the belts were from tests run by an independent company comparing John Deere belts to other belts. Be that as it may, that’s not the point of this story. Instead, the point is that you need to do what you can before harvest begins, or during harvest in daily checks if you’ve already started, to lessen the odds that you wind up with another belt for the junk heap — no matter what color of machine you’re driving in the field.

Harvest tips
Here are a few tips for a smooth harvest based on that display and discussions overheard at the Farm Progress Show among farmers, specialists and experienced company combine operators:

• Check belts regularly. Belts don’t typically give out overnight, no matter who makes them. The hours of use it took to produce the broken or frayed belts in the John Deere display were noted as part of the exhibit. Signs of wear typically appear before a belt is totally worn out and ready to break — typically, perhaps not always!

• Keep spares of key belts. It might pay to have spares for the belts that get the most wear and are most likely to break. Many farm shops have areas where spare parts are stored, and belts are usually included. The alternative is to have a good relationship with your local dealer and know how to get access to the belt you need if you break down during harvest.

The trade-off is that belts can be expensive. You may decide you can only afford to keep certain belts on hand.

• Decide whether to grease chains or not. An interesting discussion occurred among a farmer, his son and a company rep who operates combines on his own farms, as they were standing around a corn head. The farmer wanted to know if he should run the drive chains dry or oil them. The company rep replied that he oils his regularly, but he knows people who run them dry. He’s convinced there’s no right or wrong answer. See which way produces longer-lasting chains for you.

The trio agreed that if you start one way, you should stay that way — either oil them regularly or always run them dry.

• Identify sealed bearings and grease points. A selling feature of newer machines, both harvesting and tillage, is that more manufacturers are using sealed bearings, which don’t need daily greasing, when they can. Higher-quality bearings make that possible.

However, you need to know which points on your machines require regular greasing and which don’t. There may be fewer hard-to-get-to places to grease on most machines, but there are still machines with key points that need lubing daily.