VARIABLE DRIVE FOR A HARVESTER FUNCTIONAL ELEMENT

VARIABLE DRIVE FOR A HARVESTER FUNCTIONAL ELEMENT In a drive system for the threshing cylinder of a combine harvester, a conventional infinitely variable V-belt drive, is combined with a two-speed final drive assembly. In the final drive assembly, an epicyclic gear train is housed within the body of a driven sheave journaled on the cylinder shaft. For a direct drive mode, the sheave is coupled to the shaft by way of a flange mounted non-rotatably on the shaft. A sun gear of the gear train is controllable externally of the sheave body and may be non-rotatably secured relative to the combine body for a cylinder speed reducing mode. The combine cylinder speed is therefore infinitely variable within, selectively, either an upper range or a lower range.