JD 24T rebuild success

DLMKA

Member
Last summer crashed 24T baler. Bent one needle, needle carriage, tucker finger shaft, and broke the boss on the intermittent gear where the roller that actuates the tucker finger goes. Spent the winter sourcing replacement parts. Bought a pair of needles off Craigslist for $100 and bought a needle carriage, tucker fingers and shaft, and new hay restrictors from Finger Lakes Equipment in New York (all new aftermarket parts). Swapped the left knotter and intermittent gear for right and vice versa so I could bolt the tucker actuator roller on and not have to buy new intermittent gear, same p/n from one side to the other.

Spent part of last week and Saturday getting everything fixed up and ready to go. Replaced all three chains with new ones since it's pretty cheap insurance against crashing it again from a failed drive chain. Got everything retimed per the manual.

Finally felt comfortable with adjustments to trip knotters and turned it over slowly by hand. Watched everything go a couple times and rechecked timing. Bet I tripped and cycled by hand 2 dozen times before working up the courage to put the tractor on it. Tripped at idle a few times and strung some twine through, cycled knotters again and broke up half a dozen bales to try it out. First bale tied on both sides but second missed right side. Would miss 3 and then tie one. Kept breaking and rebaling bales while watching. Knots were pretty ragged looking and twine in twine disc looked pretty ragged. Pulled twine knife off and sharpened it on a honing stone real good and it tied 2 more bales perfectly. Ready to cut hay now once we get a window opened up with no rain.

Getting that fixed was a pretty darn good feeling, I made an expensive mistake but learned an awful lot from the experience and have a lot more confidence I can keep this old baler running good all season. Planning on hand tripping knotters and cycling it by hand ever time I pull it out of shed and double checking the timing, made myself a little cheat sheet and laminated it to put in toolbox on baler.
 
One thing I did not see you talking about if the plunger safety stop. That is one part I double check every time I fire up any square baler because as long as that works like it should it is very unlikely you will ever break a needle learned that the hard way on a 14T and when the needles broke it took out both knotters
 
(quoted from post at 11:26:44 05/16/16) One thing I did not see you talking about if the plunger safety stop. That is one part I double check every time I fire up any square baler because as long as that works like it should it is very unlikely you will ever break a needle learned that the hard way on a 14T and when the needles broke it took out both knotters

Forgot to mention that. Spring was missing. Rigged one up from hardware store but think I'm going to spend the $$ on the right part in a yellow and green bag.
 
Having a good working plunger stop will save you many many many $$ overtime. I learned by destroying a 14T which I still have laying around as a parts machine
 
I have a 24t as well and did the same thing many years ago. I do not like the plunger stop on a 24t because if the spring breaks you have no protection. A better design would have been if spring broke the plunger stop would go in and shear the pin.Take your time and study the books and most people can do knotters. A good 24t will last many years if you keep it clean and dry. Tom
 
Got it in field today started out poor, twine was breaking on bale side of knot. Backed off twine disc 1/3 turn. Went 50 bales before missing another. Going to tweak twine disc a little more in morning.
 

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