Importance

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Abstract

Crop harvesting headers include a sickle knife having a cutter bar defining a flange projecting forwardly from the header frame structure and extending across the header frame structure with a plurality of knife guards mounted on the cutter bar at spaced positions thereon so as to project forwardly therefrom. Each knife guard has at least one guard carrier lug for attachment to the flange by a bolt passing through a hole in the lug and a corresponding hole in the flange with a head on one end of the bolt and a nut on the other end of the bolt for clamping the lug to the flange. On crop harvesting headers of this type, it is often desirable to have the ability to change the knife guard angle to suit the crop and ground condition and this is obtained by providing a first elongate bar type shim located between the lug and the flange and a second shim located on the bolt. The shims are tapered front to rear and rear to front respectively each at the same set angle and are clamped on the bolt with the flange and the lug to hold the guard at a first angle relative to the flange determined by the set angle. In the method, the shims are reversed in position relative to the flange and the bolt to hold the lug at a second angle relative to the flange determined by the set angle and different from the first angle by an angle twice the set angle.

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First Claim