Blog › Harvest Parts You Don’t Want to Run Out Of: Case IH Wear Parts Guide
Harvest Parts You Don’t Want to Run Out Of: Case IH Wear Parts Guide
Posted September 14, 2026
Every fall, somebody in Winona County finds out the hard way that a $40 part can shut down a $400,000 machine.
It's rarely the dramatic failure. It's a belt that finally let go, a bearing that had been talking to you since August, a set of knife sections you meant to replace last spring. And it always seems to happen on a Saturday afternoon when the beans are finally fit and the forecast turns Monday.
You can't prevent every breakdown. But you can decide ahead of time which parts you're willing to wait on and which ones you want sitting on the shelf in your shop. Here's how we'd sort that out.
The rule of thumb
If it wears out on a predictable schedule, buy the spare before you need it. If it fails randomly, you're better off knowing we have it in stock and can get it in your hands fast.
Wear parts fall in the first category. That's the whole point of the name; they're designed to wear out. The question isn't whether you'll need them; it's whether you'll have them when you do.
Combine wear parts
Start inside the machine, because that's where the expensive downtime lives.
Belts and chains. Most combines have a lot of both, and they don't all fail at the same rate. Pull the shields and look at the ones you can't see from the ground. Cracking, glazing, stretched links, sprockets that are starting to hook. Any of those means order now, not later. Feeder house chains take a beating and are worth a close look.
Bearings. If something was making noise at the end of last harvest and you didn't chase it down, this is your window. Bearings almost always give you warning, and almost nobody listens the first time.
Concaves, rasp bars, and threshing elements. Rounded-off rasp bars cost you separation and fuel. Concave wear shows up as more grain going out the back than you'd like. If you were fighting grain loss late last season, look here first.
Sieves and chaffers. Check for cracked frames, bent louvers, and adjustment linkage that's gone sloppy. Cleaning shoe problems are miserable to diagnose in the field and easy to spot in the shop.
Straw chopper knives. Dull knives mean poor residue distribution, which turns into uneven emergence next spring. Cheap fix, long-lasting consequence.
Header parts
The header touches the crop first and takes the most abuse. It's also where most in-field stoppages start.
Corn heads. Gathering chains, deck plates, stalk rolls, snapping roll knives. Worn deck plates let ears through and drop yield on the ground. Stretched gathering chains jump sprockets at exactly the wrong moment.
Grain and draper heads. Sickle sections, guards, hold-downs, wear plates, draper belts, reel teeth. Around here, where we're running some ground that's anything but flat and picking up rocks we didn't plant, guards and sections take extra punishment. Keep a full section bar's worth of spares if you can.
Auger flighting. Worn flighting on the header auger causes feeding problems that look like a dozen other issues. Check the edges.
Grain handling
The combine gets all the attention, and then the grain cart auger goes down and everything stops anyway.
Look at auger flighting, PTO shafts, u-joints, and gearboxes on your carts, augers, and wagons. Grease everything before harvest instead of during. Keep spare shear bolts somewhere you can find them in the dark, because you will need them in the dark.
Filters and fluids
Harvest is the dustiest work you'll do all year, and your air filters know it.
Have spare air filters, fuel filters, water separators, hydraulic filters, and engine oil filters on hand. A plugged air filter costs you power and fuel economy every hour it stays plugged, and it never happens at a convenient time to run to town.
Case IH lubricants are formulated for these machines and hold up under the load harvest puts on them. Worth having extra grease, hydraulic oil, and engine oil in the shop before you start.
Don't forget tillage
The combine comes out of the field and the ripper goes in, sometimes the same week. Fall tillage parts have a way of getting ordered after everybody else already ordered theirs.
Check your sweeps, shovels, and points for rounded edges and thin spots. Look at disc blades for wear on the diameter and play in the bearings. Ripper points and wear legs take the worst of it in our ground, especially where you're running through rock. Harrow tines get bent and don't get noticed until the field shows it.
Ordering tillage parts now means you're not waiting on a shipment when conditions are finally right to go.
How to build your shelf
You don't need to stock everything. You need to stock the things that stop you cold.
Walk around your machines with a notepad before harvest starts. Write down what looked marginal. Bring that list to the parts counter and we'll help you figure out what's worth having on hand versus what we can get to you in a day.
Kalmes Implement has been supplying farms in this part of Minnesota for five generations. Our parts team knows these machines, knows what fails around here, and can help you sort out your list.
Give us a call at (507) 796-6741 or stop in and see us in Altura.