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From the inside out: get customers out of the cab to inspect the details.

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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In the limelight at a field day, with competitors' machines running alongside and skeptical farmers watching every move, how do you prime a combine for optimum performance in only one or two passes?

Farm equipment mechanics already know the answer: You get dirty.

"You can't set a combine from the operator's seat," says Jeff Gray, senior product specialist for Claas Lexion. "Sure, on the new machines you can make all the adjustments from the seat, but you won't know what adjustments to make if you don't get out of the cab. To really understand what the machine is doing and set it for optimum performance, you've got to get a little dirty."

The best way to determine exactly what a combine is doing is to stop it dead in its tracks when it's running at full capacity and full of crop. Each manufacturer has a recommendation on how to carry out "kill-stalls" or "power shutdowns," but Dan Renaud, a Case IH combine specialist, suggests moving the engine speed control to low idle with one hand while using the other hand to push the multifunction handle to the fastest forward position.

At the same time, apply full brakes (with the brake pedals locked together) until the combine stalls.

Once all motion is stopped, restart only the engine. Allow it to cool down, and then shut it off. Exit the cab, remove the side shields and open the access doors to see inside the machine.

"A kill-stall is a controlled condition, not like a plug from overfeeding," Renaud says. "It is the most effective way to analyze total machine performance and how all of the different systems are performing in relation to each other."

He emphasizes that optimum combine performance comes from smooth crop flow through the machine. And he uses an analogy that will make you grin.

"Improper machine adjustments that slow crop flow--anywhere from the header all the way back to the chopper--constipate the machine," he says. "If you've got crop hesitating at the front of the feeder house...

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