A header assembly for a combine harvester includes a header carried by an adapter on the feeder house of the combine and on a pair of gauge wheels which can be adjusted from inside the cab to change a height of the cutter bar from the ground. This is used in combination with an Automatic Header Height Control so that the main suspension is adjusted to carry approximately 90% of the header weight, the header is dropped on the ground until the gauge wheels contact the ground, and causes the header to “float” with respect to the main carrier frame and the AHHC is set so that the combine feeder house stops lowering when a pre-set amount of header to adapter separation (float) is achieved with the AHHC operating to maintain this set amount by controlling the height of the feeder house.
