The hay season is behind us now, we made right at 1,000 bales in September with the NH68 afte a bit of adjusting and timing. Impressed with this old machine – knock on wood!
But it can do better – I think? My bales were a compromise between bale density, knife clearance and windrow quality/quantity, else it spit out banana bales.
This winter, we want to really dig into it. I think this baler ought to be able to crank out some nice tight brick shaped bales, but it needs more tuning to do so.
We want to look at the wood block bearings. They need a height adjustment and the plunger needs moved over further to close the knife gap.
Question is – what are you looking for when it’s time to replace the wood plunger bearings? These look in good shape, but are worn vertically and/or out of adjustment. What are you looking for when replacing them? Waiting until the wood wears down such that the plunger is riding on the steel angles that hold the wood – are you looking for metal to metal contact vs wood to metal contact? The wood slides show no evidence of cracking, missing pieces or other damage. Given the age of this baler, I have to believe someone along the way replaced these wood slides at some point – but how would you know?
Next up is the knife. Sharpen and adjust to specs. I think if we can get the plunger squared-up and the knife gap closed, knife sharpened, that should go a long way towards making some nice solid, square block looking bales.
Also am going replace the knotter trip arm and the little round spur wheel it rides on. While this stuff works OK, they are worn almost completely flat and we had some bale length variation and I think there is some slippage between them. These parts don’t seem to be a wallet killer, so we’ll replace them.
Will sharpen the knife that cuts the twine and just clean and check the knotters too. My needle eyes need brazed a bit to fill-in some worn groves in them. I may replace the drive shaft u-joints, or at least have some replacements on hand should one of them let-go next year. Don’t know how your luck goes, but sometimes when I proactive replace worn, but otherwise working parts, I regret it later – LOL.
Any other sage off-season advice you can offer for a baler tune-up?
Can I count on this old 68 to make some solid square brick bales next year…
But it can do better – I think? My bales were a compromise between bale density, knife clearance and windrow quality/quantity, else it spit out banana bales.
This winter, we want to really dig into it. I think this baler ought to be able to crank out some nice tight brick shaped bales, but it needs more tuning to do so.
We want to look at the wood block bearings. They need a height adjustment and the plunger needs moved over further to close the knife gap.
Question is – what are you looking for when it’s time to replace the wood plunger bearings? These look in good shape, but are worn vertically and/or out of adjustment. What are you looking for when replacing them? Waiting until the wood wears down such that the plunger is riding on the steel angles that hold the wood – are you looking for metal to metal contact vs wood to metal contact? The wood slides show no evidence of cracking, missing pieces or other damage. Given the age of this baler, I have to believe someone along the way replaced these wood slides at some point – but how would you know?
Next up is the knife. Sharpen and adjust to specs. I think if we can get the plunger squared-up and the knife gap closed, knife sharpened, that should go a long way towards making some nice solid, square block looking bales.
Also am going replace the knotter trip arm and the little round spur wheel it rides on. While this stuff works OK, they are worn almost completely flat and we had some bale length variation and I think there is some slippage between them. These parts don’t seem to be a wallet killer, so we’ll replace them.
Will sharpen the knife that cuts the twine and just clean and check the knotters too. My needle eyes need brazed a bit to fill-in some worn groves in them. I may replace the drive shaft u-joints, or at least have some replacements on hand should one of them let-go next year. Don’t know how your luck goes, but sometimes when I proactive replace worn, but otherwise working parts, I regret it later – LOL.
Any other sage off-season advice you can offer for a baler tune-up?
Can I count on this old 68 to make some solid square brick bales next year…