TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, my name is Quinn from MacDon Industries. I'm a product support specialist and today we're going to go over setting up your MacDon FD2 FlexDraper® header for harvesting canola.

First things first, we are going to want to adjust our reel to the rearward position on the ShatterGuard Reel Positioning. We're going to open our endshield as we'll need access into their later. We are going to remove the pin on our end shadow guard reel positioning system. Removal of the pin will allow us to move the cylinder positioning from the frontward position to the rearward position of the header. To do that, pull the cylinder out into the lengthwise slot. Come to the end of the header, now we can grab our Set-It-Right Multi-Tool from inside the left hand endshield. Note that the header shown here is an FD235 which is a double reel configuration. Triple reel configurations you'll have to make this center reel arm adjustment twice. Going to put our multi-tool on the hex. Support the reel and then rotate the reel into the rearward position. Reinstalling our clip will lock in the center reel arm position on the outer reel arm. Move it in. Rotate into position and then reinstall. 

This allows us to run our reel fore-aft travel in a more rearward position to the standard, allowing us to compress that crop in behind the reel between the cross auger and the draper for better draper feeding performance. 

We want to enable our Upper Cross Auger if installed, turning to the onwards position. That will allow flow and rotate the auger. Then we want to unlock our float module float. Taking our blue handle from the frontward position to the rearward position as shown on the float lock decal well as unlock our wings to allow the header to flex over variable terrain. It should be noted if you do not have ContourMax™ Contour Wheels installed, you should leave your wings in the locked position. Unlocking our float on the right-hand side and unlocking our wing lock off the ground cutting with our ContourMax™ Contour Wheel system. The contour wheels are frame mounted on the outer left- and right-hand wings as well as on the interior of the wing frame allow us to use our flex and float systems over variable train in the field to maintain a consistent cut height. 

Next up, I'm going to hop in the cab and adjust the reel fore-aft to what should be a good optimal starting position. From there, we can adjust once we get into the crop. The goal is to have the reel engage the crop once the crop is over the cutter bar. The position we see right now, number seven on the indicator in the rearward ShatterGuard position. So seven is all the way forwards. We're going to move that back until our front reel tine is just over the front of the knife, which should be position two on the reel fore-aft indicator. To set our header cut height, to do this, we'll use our installed ContourMax™ Contour Wheel system.

To set our cut height off the ground, we'll go and we'll say select position three, which is about 12 in to 15 in off the ground. If your header has ContourMax™ Contour Wheels, make sure your combine's auto header height control is running. We'll adjust our header tilt, our white indicator in the center of the header to about B and a half as a good starting position.

Some of the strategies we like to use while harvesting canola is just having our reel fingers just kind of brushing into the top of the crop but without the tine tube touching the plant because that could lead to additional seed loss and that's something we're wanting to stay away from. The other thing we want to uh make sure that we're keeping an eye on is our draper speed. So what we're wanting to do is we're wanting to take that crop from the knife onto the draper and then the draper into the center to our center feed draper, and we're wanting to get it onto the feed draper, but we want to make sure that we're not crossing the plants over such that we're plugging underneath the opposite side draper. That may be an indication that your draper speed is too fast. Somewhere between 4 to 6 on the draper speed dial as that's somewhere around half the range. With some of the full integration packages that we offer on Case IH, New Holland, John Deere and CLASS, that draper speed adjustment could be made using the combine dial for their specific OEM header. Sometimes that's on the panel here and sometimes that's in the cab display. Your draper speed setting depending on combine brand configuration is going to be somewhere around that kind of 50% of the range. So about 40% to 60% if it's measured that way or about 4 to 6 if it's on a scale of 1 to 10 there. 

Another thing worth mentioning is that on our feed auger we do have a finger timing adjustment just to push those fingers out earlier so in your big bushy crops such as canola we want to get that finger timing up and out as far as possible so that it can help pull the crop in and underneath the augur. And for a video on that the link is in the description.

Please remember that those are just starting points. Please feel free to adjust your reel fore-aft, reel height, header tilt, and ContourMax™ settings for your optimal harvesting performance.
 

Visit our product pages to learn more:

FD2 FlexDraper® Header
FD2 PLUS FlexDraper® Header

Additional Resources:
MacDon Performance Parts
Owners Resources
MacDon Dealers
How To Video Library