Blog › Is Your Combine Ready? Pre-Harvest Inspection Checklist for SE Minnesota

Is Your Combine Ready? Pre-Harvest Inspection Checklist for SE Minnesota

Posted September 22, 2026

The combine has been sitting since last fall. Maybe you pulled it out and ran it through a field of beans to make sure it still moved. Maybe it's been sitting since October and nobody's opened a panel.

Either way, there's a difference between a machine that starts and a machine that's ready. Here's what's worth going through before the first load.

Start with a clean machine

Blow it down before you inspect it. You can't see a cracked belt or a wet spot under an inch of last year's chaff, and old crop residue packed around the engine is the single most common cause of combine fires.

While you're at it, look for mouse damage. Rodents spend the winter in warm machines chewing on wiring harnesses, and that failure always shows up at the worst possible time.

Engine and cooling

Rotary screen and radiator core - clean, not just brushed off
Coolant level and hose condition, especially where hoses rub
Engine oil, hydraulic oil, and gearbox levels
Air filters, primary and secondary
Fuel filters and the water separator
Belts and tensioners - look for cracking, glazing, and fraying

Dust is the enemy here, and harvest is the dustiest work you'll do all year. Anything marginal now will be plugged by the second week.

Electrical

Battery terminals clean and tight
Field lights, road lights, flashers, and the SMV sign
Wiring harnesses where they pass through panels or near moving parts
Monitors and displays powering up and reading correctly

If you're running a Pro 700 or 600, now is the time to confirm it's working the way you expect, not the first evening you're trying to finish a field.

Feeder house

Chain tension and slat condition
Drum and reverser function
Stone trap clean and latching properly

A stone trap that doesn't latch is a problem you find out about when it's already expensive.

Threshing and separating

Rasp bars for rounded edges and missing hardware
Concaves for wear and correct clearance
Rotor or cylinder bearings - listen and feel for play
Drive belts and chains throughout

If you were fighting grain loss at the end of last season, start looking here. Worn rasp bars and concaves cost you separation, fuel, and capacity all at once.

Cleaning shoe

Sieve and chaffer frames for cracks, bent louvers, sloppy linkage
Cleaning fan and drive
Return elevator chain and paddles

Cleaning shoe problems are miserable to diagnose in the field and easy to spot in the shop with the panels off.

Grain handling

Clean grain elevator chain and paddles
Bubble-up auger
Unloading auger flighting and drive
Grain tank for holes, loose hardware, and leftover residue

Residue management

Chopper knives and stationary knives for sharpness
Spreader function and spread pattern

Dull chopper knives mean uneven residue, and uneven residue means uneven emergence next spring. It's a small job now and a season-long consequence if you skip it.

Header

Corn heads: gathering chains and tension, deck plate spacing and wear, stalk rolls and snapping roll knives, gearbox oil levels, row unit drives.

Grain and draper heads: sickle sections and guards, hold-downs and wear plates, draper belts and tension, reel teeth and timing, auger flighting.

The header takes the most abuse and causes the most stoppages. On the ground around here - hills, rock, and terraces - guards and sections wear faster than the book says they should.

Chassis, hydraulics, and brakes

Tire condition and pressure, or track tension and idler wear
Brakes, especially if you're running bluff country
Hydraulic hoses for chafing, cracking, and weeping fittings
Steering and final drive oil levels
Ladder, handrails, and platform hardware

Southeast Minnesota isn't flat. Brakes and hydraulics matter more here than they do out west, and a hillside is a bad place to find out something is soft.

Cab

Air conditioning and cab filter
Glass, mirrors, wipers, and washer fluid
Seat and seat belt condition

You'll spend a lot of hours in there. Fix the small annoyances now.

Fire safety

Fire extinguishers charged, mounted, and within date
A second extinguisher in the grain cart tractor or pickup
Compressed air on the machine so you can blow it down daily

Combine fires happen every fall in this state. Most of them start in packed residue on a hot engine.

Grease and calibration

Hit every zerk, including the ones you have to climb for. Then calibrate the yield monitor and check the moisture sensor before the first field, not after you've already recorded three days of data you can't trust.

What to do with what you find

Some of this is a Saturday morning with a grease gun. Some of it is a bearing you'd rather have a technician replace in the shop than replace yourself in a field.

Walk the machine with a notepad and sort your list into what you'll handle and what you want us to look at. If it's the second kind, get it on the calendar sooner rather than later — the shop fills up fast this time of year, and lead time is the thing you can't buy back.

Kalmes Implement has been servicing harvest equipment in this part of Minnesota for five generations. Collin and the service team can go through your combine, tell you what they find, and get it right before you're in the field.

Call (507) 796-6741 or stop in and see us in Altura.