NH 270 Baler Question

touchoftech

New User
I have an old New Holland 270 Hayliner. It's always sheared allot of flywheel pins but I just figured it was me not knowing what I was doing and not sharpening the knife in a while. I baled about 200 bales yesterday and only sheared a few pins, but today, I got about 20 bales in and I couldn't bale another bale without shearing a pin. The need guard seemed to be engaged and I would put a new pin in, pull the needles back to home, and try again and after a few chomps of hay it would break again. After further investigation, I noticed that the needles weren't even engaging when I manually tripped them. They just sit there and the plunger would keep on going. The chain does go around until the little metal bit that sticks out hits the catch. Not sure if that's normal because I never took notice to that part while it was running correctly.

After reading the manual in that area and hunting around the forums:
I found that there's a knotter drive shear pin that could be broken.
The knotter brake could be loose causing the needles to slip down out of home and causing the guard to engage just a little.

I will investigate these things tomorrow, but does anyone else have any suggestions?

Thank you
 
Check the knotter brake. Sounds like the needles are drifting down. But you also say the needles don't move. That could be the knotter shear bolt. It's a 12-24 on my 273, not real common. You always broke a lot of flywheel shear bolts? You should find somebody near you who really knows balers to go over the whole thing for you. Do you use grade 5 bolts or the soft ones?
 
They may have been drifting until it sheared if that's the problem. I use soft bolts for the flywheel. They snap pretty easy. They're not even grade 3. Box of whatever they had from Lowe's. Should I be using something stronger?
 
I hate to ask a stupid question but do you tighten the shear bolt nut tight? Reason I am asking I had a man call me one time and he was having the same problem and that is what the problem was he was not tightening the nut tight
 
Should be grade 2 bolts. Soft. You do not want harder in it! One problem with regular bolts is the threads might be right where the seam/ shear point is. Special shear bolts are solid bolt at the shear point.

Over time the hole in the flywheel wears oblong, and the bolt will shear much easier because it isn't supported at the seam. Some flywheels have inserts, others just a hole in the cast.

Man that would be totally unacceptable to shear every 200 bales. You are on the right track to look at the brake and other parts you mention.

Paul
 


Often, after 10's of thousands of bales, the shear bolt bushing wears and the flywheel bushing wears. Put the shear bolt in the hole, it should be a nice snug fit. If not, if you can wiggle it around, your bushing is worn. Grab the flywheel with the shear bolt out and see if you can move it laterally at all. Should be no real movement. If you can twist it sideways at all the bushing is worn out.

Both these will shear bolts one after the other until fixed. You need to check the brake of course, but don't over look the simple problem of wear.
 
I don't usually put a nut on at all. I got longer bolts so that the thread isn't right at the seam and a nut won't tighten down anyways. Would a shorter bolt tightened work better?
 
(quoted from post at 05:29:57 10/06/17) I don't usually put a nut on at all. I got longer bolts so that the thread isn't right at the seam and a nut won't tighten down anyways. Would a shorter bolt tightened work better?

Shear bolts are hard to break cleanly.

All of this advice about using grade 2 or such...or using a bolt with no nut...it's all asking for trouble.

Soft bolts will smear instead of breaking cleanly. As they smear, they might sort of hold on for a while. During that time, they wedge between the shear pin holder and the flywheel to try to force things to run out of alignment.

Bolt with no nuts on them can do the same thing.

A package of ten shear bolts of proper hardness with nuts on them is something like ten bucks from a dealer or online.

Cheap compared to changing a cheap bolt of the wrong grade and size every twenty minutes, and letting it beat up your baler in the process.

While you're at it, get some knotter shear pins too. Even cheaper. They break rarely, but you really don't want to risk breaking expensive knotters by saving ten cents with a substitute shear bolt.

All of the advice about checking bushings and flywheel alignment is true. I've experienced that myself. My flywheel needed seals and bearings. Until I replaced them, the shear bolt would break every few hundred bales. In proper operation, you should go thousands and thousands of bales without popping shear bolts.

My brother does 30 to 40 thousand small squares a year sometimes without replacing a shear bolt all summer.
 
Reading my comment...it was ambiguous:

"Shear bolts are hard to break cleanly"

What I meant is...

Shear bolts are hardened, so that they are brittle and break cleanly. They are not some soft grade two bolt.

They also are designed to be mostly shank with threads at the very end...just enough to hold the nut; while making the part that drives the baler all shank with no threads.
 
They should be grade 5. That's what the dealer gives you. I usually use a stop nut but I have run without any nut. The idea of a shear bolt is to protect it from shock loads. The slip clutch protects from overloading. I've had grade 2 shear in normal baling. It also helps to keep the flywheel speed up.
 
(quoted from post at 08:26:32 10/06/17) They should be grade 5. That's what the dealer gives you. I usually use a stop nut but I have run without any nut. The idea of a shear bolt is to protect it from shock loads. The slip clutch protects from overloading. I've had grade 2 shear in normal baling. It also helps to keep the flywheel speed up.

Sure...but a bolt, even of the proper grade, that you get out of a bolt bin won't have the correct thread length to shank length ratio. So you'll have threads as part of the drive surface...which will wear...which will become sloppy...which will then chatter...which will then break prematurely.

Saving money by trying to use anything but what is designed for the task, or thinking that you're saving time by not threading on a nut is false economy over the long haul.

Having said that, I've thrown a bolt in there to finish baling for a day...once..

After that, I bought a ten pack of flywheel shear pins and a ten pack of knotter shear pins. I keep them on the tractor with 9/16, 1/2, 7/16 and 3/8 wrenches. Cheapest piece of mind I ever bought.
 
Deere balers have a small roll pin that preforms as a shear pin in the link that moves the needles. NH may have a shear pin in that link too. If the needles are not moving properly and are not staying in the home position, I would check the condition of the needle shear pin.
 
The shear bolts on my NH 315 are 3/8 shank and 5/16 threads. As far as I know you can only find them at the dealer. I didn't look online. I don't have many other choices in my area (north east Utah). Fortunately the local CaseIH dealer stocks a few NH parts. My nearest NH dealer is 150 miles away. I bought a few spare bolts and when I needed them I found most of them had "evaporated". I guess that's what I get for parking it by the road. I bought 2 bags of 10 bolts and only put a few in the baler. Get the proper bolts for your baler.
 
I checked today and the knotter shear bolt is broken, so I guess I'll make a trip or get some shipped in and see where it goes from there.
 
(quoted from post at 08:29:57 10/06/17) I don't usually put a nut on at all. I got longer bolts so that the thread isn't right at the seam and a nut won't tighten down anyways. Would a shorter bolt tightened work better?

Get the proper bolt, and keep them tight. Best advise I can give you. Fix the other things, but shear bolts need to be kept tight. Massey used a 9mm shank with a 5/16 fine thread. Anything else wouldn't fit right. I replaced the bushing in the flywheel, as well as the shear bushings in the flywheel and drive hub on our Massey #12, and it made a huge difference. Could go all day (1000 bales) and not shear a pin.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
Your question is not stupid. It is highly relevant. My experience is: 1 use self locking nuts. 2 use either ring spanner or socket on a ratchet. 3 tighten nut till you can feel the thread almost start to strip. 4 use grade 5 bolt. 6 don't use high tensile or hardened bolts. Other points to check especially if the baler has had former unknown operators:shearbolt bushings loose in the flywheel, bolt hole through bushings worn and bevelled at shearing edge, same applies to cross feed shearbolt and knotter drive shear bolt. Bushings in flywheel hub on shaft to gearbox worn. Plunger knife sharpness and plunger knife clearence both have massive impact on shear bolts. Check knotter brake. Check plunger safety stop AND THE RETURN SPRING. Check the integrity of the knotter engagement pawl assembly (on the knotter shaft, remove the drive sprocket to access it) Check the timing of the knotters relevant to the plunger and the crossfeed. There are markings stamped on the frame for this starting at the flywheel crank, the crossfeed and on the knotter drive. Also check that the needle yoke or needles are not hitting places they should not, like the bale chamber. Read the book very carefully. The New Holland operators manuals are dead accurate.
 
(quoted from post at 18:03:16 10/06/17) I checked today and the knotter shear bolt is broken, so I guess I'll make a trip or get some shipped in and see where it goes from there.

Give yourself at least a little credit for finding that the broken knotter shear pin is your issue.

I know people that have baled for years that have been stumped by the knotter shearpin breaking. It's tiny. It almost never breaks. You really have to look and think to realize what's going on.

In the meantime, you don't have to wait for shearpins to further diagnose what's going on.

You could put in a bolt temporarily and turn the baler over by hand by rotating the flywheel (better if you have a strong and willing friend to help.) Of course...make sure that the baler PTO is completely disconnected from the tractor when you do this.

Turning the baler over by hand and activating the knotters gives you a slow motion view of what's going on that can help you figure out if there is a reason that your shearpins are breaking.

Maybe everything is fine with your knotters. I've seen my knotter shearpin break twice in a few years. Once was in some really crummy hay on a field that hadn't been cut in a few years. After looking at the bales that came out of the chamber, there were some sticks in there from a downed tree branch at the edge of the field. One of them must have gotten caught in the twine fingers...or redirected one of the needles off target...

Another time was when my father in-law hit an unseen woodchuck hole in the field, and it must have been when the knotters were activating. The wheel on the heavy side of the baler dropped into the hole....flywheel shearpin and knotter shearpin both broke. We replaced them, turned the baler over a few times by hand. Everything looked OK... baled ever since with no more issues.

But....turning the baler over by hand and watching a few cycles would help you determine if there is a systemic issue (timing, etc.) as opposed to the single-shot errors that I mentioned above.

Good luck!
 
I had a NH 269 for a couple years and it broke me of offset balers, probably dumped $2000 in the ol' girl before it became someone else's problem. What a Learning Curve that was. I feel you baler folks pain. Been down that road and will NOT travel that route again. All that I can say that I did was read the book till tears came out of my eyes and then read it again and then go to the parts store with lots of $$$$. bjr
 

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