Patent ID: 7874134

Claim:
A corn head for a harvesting machine adapted to advance over a field of corn planted in rows, comprising: a transversely elongated main frame; a plurality of transversely spaced row units including row unit frames extending forwardly from the main frame, each row unit having a drive arrangement including a pair of fore-and-aft extending, parallel snapping roll drive shafts configured to drive a pair of fore-and-aft extending snapping rolls, and a pair of upright, parallel gathering chain drive shafts, a pair of idler shafts being respectively mounted to a pair of chain tensioner arrangements respectively supported at upper forward regions of the row unit frame respectively in fore-and-aft alignment with said pair of gathering chain drive shafts, a pair of drive sprockets being respectively mounted on said pair of gathering chain drive shafts and a pair of idler sprockets being respectively mounted on said pair of idler shafts, and a pair of endless gathering chains being respectively looped one about each of the fore-and-aft aligned drive and idler sprockets and including gathering elements spaced along said chains, the improvement comprising: each row unit including at least one cutting disk being removably mounted beneath the idler sprocket on a first one of said pair of idler shafts for tracing a path passing above said row unit frame for cutting corn stalks so that corn stalks together with ears of corn are harvested, whereby said at least one cutting disk may be removed from said first one of said pair of idler shafts and a pair of snapping rolls may be respectively mounted on said pair of snapping roll drive shafts when it is desired to harvest only ears of corn.