Saving fuel with a forage harvester: get more from every litre

With diesel prices exceeding €2, every drop counts during the grass harvest. A forage harvester consumes a lot of fuel, but a smart approach to machine technology and adjustment can easily save litres per hour. Over a full year, this represents a substantial sum. These practical tips help you obtain maximum performance from your machine.

Function: the basis of efficient crop flow

Fuel efficiency stands or falls with the flow of crop through the forage harvester. The more smoothly grass passes through the machine, the less resistance the engine encounters. This process starts at the feed system and cutterhead. When cutting components are blunt, cutting turns into beating and consumes power. By optimizing sharpness and crop flow, every gram of fuel is converted into crop in the trailer instead of unnecessary heat in the cutterhead.

Importance of adjustment: knives and shear bar

The heart of the machine is the interaction between the knife and shear bar. The golden rule is that blunt knives set close to the shear bar work better than razor-sharp knives with an excessive clearance.

• Sharpening: During grass harvesting, there is no need to sharpen 30 times once a day. The high raw-ash content in grass quickly removes that extreme sharpness anyway. It is better to briefly touch up the knives several times a day with three sharpening passes to remove the bluntest points.
• Shear bar: Adjust the shear bar more frequently, preferably every hour. For machines that sharpen in reverse, the maximum clearance should be 0.25 mm. For machines that sharpen forwards, use zero clearance across the full width.
• Sensors: Retighten the knock sensors with a torque wrench. Sensors that are too tight become oversensitive, resulting in a larger and less efficient clearance. Tightening torque: 20 Nm.

Bearings, wear and floor plate

Play in the shear-bar adjustment is unacceptable. Everything must move smoothly to guarantee precision. Also inspect related components such as the floor plate and blower. A clearance as thin as a fingernail is often unnecessary. Two to three millimetres for the blower is a good starting point.

An important warning for the floor plate: the cast-iron wear plate behind the shear bar must never be closer to the knives than the floor plate itself. If it is, the crop begins to bind, which is immediately visible in the load on the pump.

Engine power and speed

The engine is where expensive fuel is converted into power. The aim is to operate the machine at 100% load.

• 100% is key: At a lower load, you are not using the machine to its full potential. At a much higher load, engine speed drops so far that oil flow to the hydrostatic drive decreases. Despite a roaring engine, the machine then travels more slowly.
• Reduced speed: Use the option to lower full-throttle engine speed on the headland. Unnecessary acceleration between swaths consumes a lot of fuel without producing any output.
• Clean air: Keep the air filter and intercooler completely clean. Cold air under high pressure contains more oxygen, ensuring optimal combustion and more kilowatt-hours from every gram of fuel.

Tuning and optimization

Adjusting engine software can make a major difference. Be cautious with power boxes that merely manipulate a sensor, as they often cause pointless additional fuel consumption. A good tuner focuses on efficiency. A 5% saving on the fuel bill after a proper software update is not unusual.

In brief

• What is the purpose of these adjustments? To minimize resistance in the machine and process more grass with less fuel.
• When is a component worn? If knives become rounded or the shear-bar adjustment develops play, consumption increases immediately.
• What matters when replacing parts? Choose parts that suit your specific sharpening pattern and keep the adjustment mechanism in excellent condition.
• Where are they available? Westerink Parts BV supplies all relevant parts and specialist advice.

Westerink Parts: your partner in performance

Westerink Parts specializes in optimizing forage harvesters. Whether you need high-quality shear bars, crop-flow adjustment or fine-tuning of engine software, we help you keep fuel costs under control.

Would you like to know how much you can save on fuel? Contact Westerink Parts for honest and practical advice.