Can't make a square bale

Dale c mi · Jun 11, 2014

Picked up two new holland 68 balers, $500 for pair one that is in working shape the other for parts. The problem is it won't make a square bale. The owners manual said that the times were set at the factory. Does anyone know what the distance is between the tines. I have the left time all the way to the left, and the right time is about 8 " to the right

DeltaRed · Jun 11, 2014

More to that than just 'tine spaceing'.Those old balers are notorious for lopsided bales.The tines are probably worn off.They wont effective move hay if they are 'short'.Compare them with a new one.Ground speed is an issue.So is windrow size,The baler must be full to do good work.Light windrows are prone to bananaing.Play with the spaceing,see if different settings help.I once installed an extra tine in a 283 once,made a huge difference/improvement.Something else that helps,Count the strokes per bale,adjust ground speed to maintain that count.On the old 282 and 283,I would aim for 20 spb.down to 15 shift down,up to 25 shift up.Your counts will probably be different from mine.Keep rpm to pto or close to it.Slow rpm effects things too.

Graham from New Zealand · Jun 11, 2014

I had a NH super 66 which had it's own setup for feeding but it sounds like the 68 must have had tines on a chain like the 280 series I had for many years. We were able for some time to get at least three variations of tines for them. Longer straight tines, standard length curved tines and best of all long curved tines. All these were a big improvement on the original standard tines especially the long curved ones. They acted like a hand held hay fork would. They seemed to become unavailable after some years. Why I'll never know. Also are your plunger knives SHARP? And properly adjusted. If not, uncut hay will not feed through to the other side of the bale chamber. Result, banana bales.

Bret4207 · Jun 12, 2014

My 68 did the same thing. My feeder tines were too short (worn bad) and I was running it too slow RPM wise. Run it about 540 RPM, make sure the feeder times are all there and long enough and keep the windrows nice and big and you should find the bales squaring up. Playing with the bale tension screws does about nothing to cure lopsided bales. Make sure the hay dogs and springs are there and working and that the wedges/restrictors are there.

FWIW, when I went to plastic twine my knotting problems basically disappeared over night.

Doug Wi · Jun 12, 2014

I added another set of tines to mine. Ran 3 pairs I think. People that had run 68's couldn't believe that I was making such nice bales with mine. Like others have said, they are probably worn pretty badly too.

Anonymous-0 · Jun 13, 2014

Check that your hay dog springs are working properly. Two up top, one in the bottom of the chamber. Then check that your wedges are not flattened against the sides of the chamber. Then see how worn your feeder tines are, and the spring that holds the third set on the end is workiing right. Start out by setting them where the original factory paint marks are.

Then see if your hay flap at the top at the entrance of the hay from the pickup to the plunger chamber is there. Then of course there's checking to see if your plunger clearances are set right, both side to side and top of the chamber. Run at a speed so the plunger cycles about once per second.

Make big windrows, and fill the maw of that baby up when making bales. If all those things are correct, the 68 makes a fine bale, though you won't make much time with it. 7000 twine works best for me.

I got one out of the weeds a few years ago, took me a season or so to work the kinks out, but it works great now.

Can't make a square bale

Dale c mi

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DeltaRed

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Graham from New Zealand

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Bret4207

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Doug Wi

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Anonymous-0

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