NH 276 Knotter problem

dhermesc

Well-known Member
I have the manual but I haven't cracked it yet because we haven't had time. My 16 year old son was running the baler yesterday and called to tell me that it had broke 6 bales in the last 120. A couple days
ago it broke it's first bale of the year after making over a 1000 bales without a miss so the issue is getting progressively worse. We clean the knotters at day end every time. It appears to be failing to
cut the twine and leaving a 4' trailing string on a bale (with a knot on one end of the string). What is the starting point? I plan on cleaning the machine out tonight, going though the manual as we have
several days of rain predicted.


He had an eventful day baling - also managed to break the "Rice Tooth" that the previous owner had welded (knew I should have replaced it) and fed it through the plunger - the plunger snapped it in two without
breaking a shear bolt, I am sure I have a nice dent in the blade to file out. Messick has them for $169 + frieght - is there a cheaper place to get them?
 
Sounds like a knife arm problem and a dull knife. Also check the roller on the knife arm. Post a picture of the part that broke as I may have it. Don't know what you are calling a Rice tooth.
 

I'm going to save the honorable member named "Old" the trouble of mentioning that you should sharpen the knife on your knotter's wiper arm. Sounds like it might not be cutting the twine the way it should.

I can relate to the issue with the "Rice Tooth"... I'm working on my tine bar this week. Ironically, the rice tooth itself is about all that's left of my tine bar after the main drive chain broke and put the tine bar into the plunger.

Good news? Only the aluminum tines went into the plunger...not nearly as tough on the blade as that spring steel rice tooth :)

You can try scrap yards, like Fry's in Pennsylvania. I haven't even tried them. I figure that these parts on the tine bar are probably some of the first items pulled from the baler....but maybe you'll get lucky?

570-546-3968
 

"Rice Tooth" was a new name for me as well. I always jokingly called them "Dinosaur Teeth"....the big teeth that sweep the hay from the pickup to the plunger.

But anyway, in the Messick's parts diagrams for the 276, if you look at the sweep mechanism into the plunger. They call it a "Tine Bar"

I can't remember what they call the aluminum single teeth towards the plunger side of the baler on the tine bar...

But the double-toothed, spring steel, pivoting, spring loaded tooth at the other end of the tine bar is called the "Rice Tooth"

I wish I didn't know this. Looking at that diagram is costing me something like 600 bucks this week...
 
On Messicks website they show it as a "Rice Tooth" - it is the larger of the fingers that feed the hay into the chamber (furthest from the chamber). My understanding this part is specific to the 276 only.



https://www.messicks.com/nh/1174007



Or go to

Messicks.com

New Holland balers

276

(013) Tine bar and Cam TracK


Part Number:

11 Rice Tooth
 
READ your book. Knot in one end only is one of two classical failures that requires simple adjustments. Should not require any parts!

Dull knife is not one of the problems!
 

Yeah, could be more than that.

When I think about knotter issues, the manual helps... this video is a great tool as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoB_1meRa9A


Right here (see below) is the video stopped at 10:09...at that point, the bill hook has made the knot, and the wiper arm is ready to cut the two tails. One tail has a dead end and it will be discarded as a little piece of twine on the next rotation of the twine disc. The other tail is the twine that remains in the twine disc to become the twine on the next bale.

If you turn your baler over by hand slowly...everything should look just like this frame... at the point where the wiper arm is ready to wipe and cut.

https://youtu.be/ZoB_1meRa9A?t=609
 
I have found that in most cases where it has twine like your saying it is a dull knife or the knife arm has gotten out of adjustment. Learned years ago to always sharpen the knifes before starting to bale with the baler. I have a couple of small wet stones I use to sharpen the knifes with. Also the knife arm need to ride so close to the bill hook that there is NO gap between the 2
 

Yeah...if you watch the video from about 9:16 to 10:00, the narrator talks about the twine finger's task. He talks about how it pushes "number two twine" (the twine defining the end of the bale being tied) forward to the bill hook to prevent the hay from pushing it back.


I have noticed that you can have the problem described in the original post by not running the baler up to a reasonable RPM level.

My son-in-law baled for us for a couple of hours last summer. We had a couple missed knots similar to what's being described here; which I attributed to him being overly cautious and not running the baler at anywhere close to 540 PTO RPMs.

Why? That was the only thing different from how we were previously operating, and my guess was that the plunger flywheel wasn't "charged" enough to ensure that every slab was packed and pushed forward properly to allow the twine fingers to do their job.

I had him rev up a little and the problem went away.

Of course, this is in contrast to my father-in-law who pulls the tractor to full throttle and leaves it there the entire time the baler is in the field...full...empty...baling...driving across the headlands...turning...straight.

That causes other problems... usually not with the knotters

These balers are designed to run the best at a certain PTO RPM level... you can run them too slowly or too quickly...and get various issues...
 

As others are saying, classic tucker fingers not bringing twine from needle to disc, so there will be knot in over-the-bale end only. Less likely is as others said lack of tension on twine disc.
 
I have made several times of aluminum stock
Just make sure to get the right diameter as
the various times on my 268 are different.
No need to pencil sharpen ends. Just cut
pointy ends at a sharp angle and install
cut side down. Will wear pointy shortly.
 
along with what others have stated, 2 things that can be easily over looked is a broken hay dog spring or broken hay dog, also depending on what your baling check the hay chamber side wedges one may be missing if you use them, either one of these will allow the hay to spring back causing tying problems
 

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