Sickle Mower - MF 31 - ledger plates

I have a MF 31 sickle mower badly in need of replacing ledger plates. I also have an old NI sickle mower (pitman) whose guards and ledger plates are in better condition. The NI guards appear to be compatible with the MF bar, so I am thinking of replacing the MF guards with the NI guards, and possibly also replacing the NI ledger plates with new, if I can find them. The NI guards have MC2041 on the top. The MF guards have no identifier other than some have MF, suggesting they are OEM.

Comments, suggestions, etc. would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Optiker

Just a small added piece of info....

In searching the site for additional posts on the MF31, I happened onto my original post back in 2007 when I first bought the MF31 as a replacement for the NI mower referenced. In that thread, I see that the NI mower is a model 30, so perhaps that might help determine if the guards could be interchangeable. Of course, the NI bar could very well not be the original.

Thanks!
Optiker/Chuck, WA

I suggest you buy one guard, install it then do some checking before you replace all of them

I have a MF #32 mower, the only guards that fit proper was MF guards.
I replaced the ledger plates on my mf guards and blade sections.
always kept one or two extra (new mf) guards in the tool box, the other brands just did not fit properly,
however, I never had access to nh guards.

Good morning Maxwell...

Thanks for the reply.

Probably the best advice rather than trying to cut corners. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can justify the cost at probably somewhere between $10 and $20 (or more?) per guard for 24 guards.

I hay about 3 acres - 3 cuttings of grass hay a year - really just as a hobby, but have a friend who buys all I can produce. I don't have any stock myself, and don't make any money on it after the cost of fertilizer, irrigation, fuel and baling wire.

I bought the mower when the linkage on the old New Idea model 30 broke the cast iron linkage to the bar. After several years, with the MF not cutting well and breaking, and my not experienced enough to make it work well, I gave up and payed a neighbor to mow with his disk mower. Over the few years that he did it, the mowing seemed to get poorer - more and more left behind - until this past fall I decided to try to resurrect the old MF sickle. If I can't make that work, I'm about ready to change hobbies!

Maybe more important, I'm not sure if the mower itself is in good enough shape that even with that, it will do the job. It has had a tendency, back when I was using it, to break the bolt that attaches the wobble box mechanism to the cutting bar. I've replaced that several times. Of course, very badly worn ledger plates certainly puts more stress on the linkage.

My best source of ledger plates is probably my Massey dealer, unless you can suggest a source.

By the way, the older mower is a New Idea (NI), not a New Holland (NH).

Thanks again for your reply.

Optiker/Chuck, WA

One other thing to check on your mower.

Is the blade in time with the guards. If the mower is out of time, no matter how many new parts you add, the mower will still not cut that well.

I had an old beef farmer ask me last year, if I had ever timed my #32 MF mower,

I had to look up how to time the blade in my owners manual.

It was out of time, but we got it back on, so it's ready to go.

Good luck with your mower,

Think the farm stores have the MF special guards avaible, may have to be special order, for less than the $ten dollars per guard. And improper guards or setings would put more stress on that bolt to break it.

Hi Maxwell...

Thanks! I didn't know about timing until I started reading forums about the guards, but have seen it mentioned many times. Since the cutter bar is out of it, I can't check that till I put guards back on and reassemble it. I also need to replace the linkage of the cutter bar to the wobble box since it's that bolt that broke last time I used it. I have the replacement parts, just not installed. So, once it's back together, I can check timing. As for how to adjust the timing, I don't have a manual, so if I can't figure it out, may come back to you and ask how it's done since your 32 and my 31 should be the same on that score.

My local MF dealer (Agri-Services NW) can order guards or ledger plates for me. Unfortunately, they only come in boxes of 50 and I only need 24. I suspect that if I ask here, somebody might be interested in buying half a box, but the real problem is cost. They want $14.80 per guard, for $740/box, and $4.25 per ledger plate for $212.50 per box, both plus 8% sales tax for Washington state. Grrrr! So, I'm not sure if I'm willing to put that much into it yet. Still looking for alternatives. I didn't expect them to be free, but the guards are a bit beyond my pain threshold.

Thanks again!
Optiker/Chuck,WA

Hi Leroy...

Thanks for the reply.

I've done a lot of looking and not found any yet. Are you talking about a specific farm store, or just farm stores in general?

My local MF dealer can order them for me as I discussed in my reply to Maxwell - guards at $14.80 each and ledger plates at $4.25 each, but only in boxes of 50.

If you are suggesting a specific farm store, please reply with the name.

Thanks again!
Optiker/Chuck, WA

I feel your pain on the cost.

At those prices you might be better off just to cut bait and go home on that machine. Unfortunately our old machines MF were never the best cutters. So unless it was your dad's machine, like mine is, you might be better off looking for another machine in better shape.

These old cycle bar cutters are mostly only used to trim around pond banks or somewhere that might damage one of their new whirrbird cutters.

sickleservice lists MF guards on their website for just under $8

The 31 is a balanced-head drive mower so it doesn't get out of register or time.

I'd sure appreciate it if you'd send along a link. I've searched their web page and the only MF #31 parts I found were cutter bars. Even when I looked up guards, without specifying brand, they show 55 different ones, but no MF guards.

Thanks for the reply. Hope you can provide a link.

Optiker/Chuck, WA

That"s good news! Thanks!

Optiker/Chuck.WA

Not looking very promising! My problem with looking for another mower is that I see no sense in buying another one that somebody else can"t make work.

Thanks!
Optiker/Chuck, WA

Don't have that make but 2 years ago looking for parts for McCormick horse drawn mower I saw some at TSC.

TSC used to be able to get them for me, but they were up near $12.00 each. haven't come up with any for almost 2 years now even though the book still listed them. If I decide to rebuild my MF 31 Dyna-Balance it looks like Webb's Sickle Service has the best prices on aftermarket Dyna-Balance parts. They don't have sickle heads for that mower though. AGCO ain't cheap on those, if they even still have any.

Just to sorta close this out, I got to the point of trying the guards from the old NI 30 on the MF31 bar and it"s not going to work. There is a gap of over 1/8" between the bottom surface of the sections and the surface of the ledger plates, with no way to compensate.

At this point, I"m down to three alternatives: I can buy ledger plates and replace them on the MF guards, though some of them are in poor condition; I have a source of MF guards at $14.25, but they only have 21 left, so would need to use three old ones with new ledger plates; I"m looking at a JD 350 sickle mower tomorrow for more than I can afford, but mowing day is in a week, so I may have to bite the bullet and buy the JD if it"s in good shape.

Thanks to all who replied!
Optiker/Chuck, WA

Have you tried emailing John @ sickleservice.com? I know he'll answer your email and steer you in the right direction with the parts if he has them. Mark

Just to wrap it up, yesterday I finished the work that needed to be done on the MF31, including replacing the spider in the drive shaft U-joint that I had forgotten was broken. Fortunately, at the time a few years ago, I had bought the replacement part.

The process included replacing the cutter bar with the one from my older NI 30 mower, which I had replaced not many cuttings before it broke and was replaced by the MF31. I guess that"s why we save everything...never can tell when it will be needed! I had to shorten the bar a few inches and drill a few new holes, and since I didn"t have rivets and couldn"t find them locally, ended up using flathead machine screws for the cutter bar head and sections that were under the strap.

I also used two guards from the old NI30, even though they didn"t fit - when installed, the ledger plate was a little over 1/8" too low, resulting in a big gap to the section. I used what my old boss used to call an Italian milling machine (he wasn"t Italian, but his wife was very Italian), a 4" angle grinder, to grind the seating surface of each of the two guards down by 1/8", and was able to shim the guards to get a reasonable gap.

I wasn"t able to get ledger plates locally, so while I replaced one with one from the old NI30, again using a flathead screw instead of a rivet, the other 21 were the originals with the worn ledger plates.

I was able to "sledge" adjust the gaps on some guards, while others didn"t move much with a whack, so many were shimmed between the back end of the guard and the bottom of the bar.

I tried attaching three pictures: (1) an example of one of the worn ledger plates; (2) three guards showing the vertical distance between the mating surface of the guards and there plane of the ledger plates; and (3) proof of the pudding...a short stretch of my "test drive" showing that even with the terribly worn guards, with the section-to-ledger plate gap set reasonably, the mower is working very well - no jams, and clean cutting. Unfortunately, I don"t think it worked, so for now, no pics...sorry.

Later today I"ll mow the rest of the fields - about 3 acres.

My wife and I are Christians and a lot of prayer went into this. Along the way, there were a number of mistakes on my part, a lot of frustration, and a lot of "coincidences" that resolved problems and mistakes. Y"all know what coincidences are don"t you? That"s when God chooses to remain anonymous!

That probably wraps up this thread for now.

Thanks for your comments.

Optiker/Chuck,WA

Yes...but I talked to or emailed so many, don"t recall the result. See the last post for my final result.

Thanks!
Optiker/Chuck, WA