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Sickle mower clogging help

G

Gene Evans

New User
Ok I am a noob and thought I would try this out. I have an old jd 37 pitman sickle mower, and just paid $600 to have it set up by local JD guys. the mower still clogs horribly can,t get 10 feet. I have tried adjusting the hold downs and gaurds but nothing seems to work. any ideas? also I have costal bahia mix grass. Thanks in advance
 
Just a couple of questions.

Does the knife clog in the inside, middle, and/or outside of the cutter bar?

Does the knife clog at the inner shoe or outer shoe?

We have both Coastal Bermuda and Bahiagrass; the Bahiagrass can be difficult to cut at times.
 
You did not say what KNIVES you have at present, but if you are mowing THICK and TANGLED grasses, you need to have PLANE EDGE KNIVES. If you are using over or under SERRATED , meaning knives with the RIPPLE edges you will always have this CLOGGING issue.
 
Need a whole bunch more information. What are you mowing? First thing I would do is tip the guards up. I can mow native grass in the sandhills of Nebraska with any combination of guards, and sickles, without plugging, but I have been doing it for 40 years. My mowers aren't new by any means, but kept in good repair. I just put $1000 of new guards and sickles on it.
They have to be "timed", sharp guards/ledger plates, and sharp sickles. You can't have the guards tipped down. Plug almost every time. You can't go to fast or to slow. To fast and you will break pitman sticks, or sickles, to slow and the grass will fall on your bar.
 
You are a newbie, yes? You paid $600 to have a professional set the mower up. Then, you took it upon your amateur/newbie self to change all the hold downs and guards. You figured you knew more than the JD mech?
Did you read your post before you sent it?
Locate someone in the area that knows mowing and pay him to come over and give you a lesson. Or swallow your pride and ask the JD dealer for a field visit.
What time of day were you mowing? Don't even think about it before 11:00 am. Push the grass back and feel the bottom and the dirt. If it is cool and damp, go have lunch and come back later.
 
Don't know what you had done in the "set up" it doesn't take long for 600 to rack up at a dealership. When I felt confident I had the relationship between the ledgers and the sections as good as it was going to be and the knife was not binding and the timing was good on a Ford 515 I started playing with the lead of the bar. Eye balled it a little forward and then adjusted it back until clogging was at a minimum. This is with a well used bar, with a mixture of guards, some new and some old sections. Mine has many reasons to clog from a condition of parts stand point but seldom does.
 
Unless you live in hay and or prairie country the local John Deere people probably don't know squat about setting up a sickle, same as very few dealers can work on square balers these days. It is not all that complicated to set up a sickle as long as you have the right guards, knives, hold downs etc. but it is something that requires a little trial and error to figure out and get right. There are a lot of articles on the internet with good information and several instructional videos on youtube that will help put what you read in perspective. It is a skill to cultivate if you intend on cutting hay with any type of sickle machine because you will do a lot of adjusting.
 

Like Lazy WP said speed is important. I would guess that you are most likely going too slow. Try estimating the speed of a team of horses walking at an easy walk, that is the speed at which they were used at for the first couple hundred years. The farmer that I worked for back in the day probably went five times faster in very heavy first cut bottom land hay without breaking sticks. It has been many years since I mowed with a sickle bar, but I can remember the feeling of satisfaction when it is working well. I got a friend with plenty of experience to help me when I started on my own. As Gordo said it would be well worth your while. As JLeus indicated the dealer tech could just as well have gotten it all wrong as correct.
 
Where are you located? I'd agree there probably ain't no more JD techs that know squat about a sickle. I have used one every season for the last 27 years. They have their quirks, but it ain't rocket science.
 
What "LazyWP" and "JB Dyer" said...... I used a JD39N sickle until late this season. With a sharp sickle and well adjusted guards they work good.
But cutting a mix of costal and bahia grass is always going to be challenging.
Bahia grass is best cut just after a rain (try scheduling that HaHa) Also you will need to keep the sickle sharp as Bahia is tough stuff.
Best of luck.
Andrew.
 
You can order a manual from JD at 1-800-522-7448.
Have your credit card handy. ~$16.00 total.

this info was on another yesterday tractor post.

if its still current it might be the best info I can give you.

buy the manual and set down and read it cover to cover, it should tell you how to set up the bar angle and knifes for best result.

does you tractor have an rpm meter, so you can tell your pto speed and ground speed?

as others have said, you need to know this info, so when you find your mower sweet operating spot. you can go back to that speed and rpm time and time again.

I have an old MF cycle mower and they can be Cantankerous at best in heavy hay.

just look around today and see how much heavy hay is being cut by cycle mowers verse the new type spinner mowers.

they will cut through most anything and the speed control is just as fast as the operator can stay on the tractor.

good luck with the old mower,

note to file:
!!!!!!!!!! be so careful when you raise and lower the bar, remember the blade can slide up/down when you do this and you must, must, must have your fingers back out of the way!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
(quoted from post at 16:19:57 08/18/13) You can order a manual from JD at 1-800-522-7448.
Have your credit card handy. ~$16.00 total.

this info was on another yesterday tractor post.

if its still current it might be the best info I can give you.

buy the manual and set down and read it cover to cover, it should tell you how to set up the bar angle and knifes for best result.

does you tractor have an rpm meter, so you can tell your pto speed and ground speed?

as others have said, you need to know this info, so when you find your mower sweet operating spot. you can go back to that speed and rpm time and time again.

I have an old MF cycle mower and they can be Cantankerous at best in heavy hay.

just look around today and see how much heavy hay is being cut by cycle mowers verse the new type spinner mowers.

they will cut through most anything and the speed control is just as fast as the operator can stay on the tractor.

good luck with the old mower,

note to file:
!!!!!!!!!! be so careful when you raise and lower the bar, remember the blade can slide up/down when you do this and you must, must, must have your fingers back out of the way!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

I haven't seen any hay being cut by a cycle mower, but last week I saw a lot of Amish cutting with their horse drawn gas powered sickle mowers. Other than the Amish I look around I don't see any one else cutting with a sickle bar. Not saying sickle bars are bad, just old and SLOOOOOOOOOOW school.
 
I agree with showcrop. I am not using my JD39N sickle mower anymore because I bought a drum mower. It cuts as fast as I can drive the tractor over the field, and even on deep, dew wet Bahia grass it never clogs up or jams. The sickle bar works but it is slower and you need to stop and clear the bar every so often, the drum mower just cuts,non-stop.

Plus I can now cut early AM with dew still on the grass, that used to stop the JD sickle bar dead.
Andrew
 
There are several comments on your post that I am betting know a lot more about sickle bar mowers than your JD tech unless he has gray hair!! Sickle bar mowers are the most economical way there is to mow hay or trim pastures. That being said, I am not familiar with the grass you are mowing. A sickle bar mower will mow everything in our area, but blue grass or alfalfa with lots of gopher mounds will test your patience, but experience with your mower and its adjustments will make it a much easier job. A well adjusted sickle bar mower will let you mow your yard and no one except the neighbor that saw you doing it will ever know the difference!!
 
Gene we need more information to help. What tractor are you pulling this mower with? Your Mower bar will need to be tilted slightly upward in the front. Is the hookup at your drawbar the correct height from the ground? The outer end of the mower bar should be slightly ahead of the inside, there is always some drag on the bar, causing the outer end to be pulled back a little bit when mowing. Maybe the outer and inner shoes need to be moved to raise the mower bar up off the ground. Are you fighting gopher mounds or ant hills? Can you post a picture of the mower and the ground you are trying to mow?
 
Gene, In your post you said you are using a JD 37 mower. Is this correct?
I have a model 39N. If yours is a 37 it is similar to mine except yours would be on a wheeled carriage an mine is a 3 point hookup.
Can you give us some more information and post some photos of your mowing setup and the grass you are mowing.
Andrew
 
I am not familiar with a JD #37. A JD #5 mounted on a JD "B" was comfortable mowing thick alfalfa in 4th gear @ 4mph in the hills on our ground(if you had used a gopher getter in the spring). An IH 1300 3PH mounted on an Oliver 1365 will mow CRP 4" high as fast as 11 mph making a clean cut on the only 50 yard stretch that is smooth enough to drive that fast safely, but its comfortable at 5-6 mph where its smooth enough to go at that speed safely.
 
I tried using a cycle mower on my black land and the crawdad mounds would do a number on the mower. I switched to a disk mower and have had no problem. Roy
 
+1 on the mounds but I bought a drum to replace it swearing to never have another sickle on the place, be it on a MOCO or plain sickle. I bought the drum because of fewer moving parts. Saw too many with braze repairs on the bottom of the mower all the way across the cutting area.

For my stemy hay I picked up a couple of crimpers. I don't mind having to make a second pass and unless the crop is stemy I don't have to use the crimper.

Mark
 
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