Binder harvesters introduced to Korea were originally designed to be used for Japonica varieties which are highly resistant to shattering. In order to improve the performance of the binder to Indica varieties which are easily shattered and have shorter stem, mechanical modifications of the binder are inevitable. Shattering losses of the binder can be classified into two major parts; one incurred before and one after binding operations. The latter has been evaluated as great as the former. Previous studies indicated that the high discharge losses resulted from a great impact force of the discharge arm on the rice bundle during the discharge process. This study was intended to theoretically analyze the discharge mechanism of four-bar linkage. For this purpose, two commercially available binder harvesters having a four-bar linkage as a discharge mechanism were analyzed. Using the results from the motion analysis and the other structural constraints of the machines, they were modified and experimentally compared with the machines without modification to see whether any decrease in grain losses was obtained. The results obtained in this study are summarized as follows: 1. The path, velocity and acceleration of discharge arm were computer analyzed by vector analysis. Using results of the analysis and intrinsic constraints of the binder, discharge mechanism was modified to reduce the impact force on bundle by discharge arm in the range where the discharge performance was not deteriorated. This modification of the discharge mechanism could be done with an aid of four-bar linkage synthesis technique. As a result, average velocity and acceleration of the discharge arm during the discharge process were reduced respectively by 19 percent and 33 percent for binder A, and 17 percent and 35 percent for binder B. 2. Through the modification of the discharge mechanism, discharge losses of binder A were reduced by 42-56 percent for Milyang 23, Poongsan and Hangang chal, and discharge losses of binder B were reduced by 13-20 percent for Milyang 23 and Poongsan. 3. Discharge losses were decreased as the bundle size became larger and the size effect on the decrease rate appeared more significant in the binders with modifications than in those without modifications.