Row crop harvesting header

Abstract

A self-propelled combine has a forwardly extending housing with a row crop header mounted on the front end of the housing. The header has a transversely elongated frame, a transversely elongated floor, a transverse auger immediately above the floor for converging the crop laterally along the floor and discharging it rearwardly into the combine crop feeding housing, and a plurality of transversely spaced row units mounted on and extending forwardly from the header frame, each row unit being adapted to sever the crop standing in a row as the machine advances and discharge the crop rearwardly onto the header floor forwardly of and below the auger. Each row unit has a forwardly and downwardly inclined frame, with a top surface and a central fore and aft trough, which forms the bottom of a fore and aft passageway. A pair of endless flexible conveyor members are mounted on each row unit frame adjacent the top surface and have rearwardly moving, intermeshing, inner runs on opposite sides of the passageway, a rotary cutting device being provided on the underside of the row unit frame adjacent the forward ends of the conveyor members for severing the crop from the field. Each row unit is independently vertically adjustable, and a hood is mounted on each pair of adjacent row units and covers the area between the passageways of the adjacent row units, a forwardly converging divider member extending forwardly from each hood and having a forward divider point that moves between the adjacent rows as the machine advances. The row units are laterally adjustable to accommodate different row spacings and means are provided for selectively locking the row units rigidly to the header frame, the individual row units normally being independently floatable and partially supported on the ground through skid shoes that are tiltable about a fore and aft axis.