14t Baler - dealer/knotter issue

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
Bought an old 14t (like there are any that are new) last summer. The old guy I bought it from was a neighbor and he used it on his property. It failed to knot on the right side ("inside knotter)on one in twenty bales. I replaced several parts myself but didn't trust myself to work on the knotters.

I brought it to the local dealership to have them diagnose the knotter issue. After looking at it the "mechanic" said I should replace all the chains, the duck bills on the knotters and retime it. I had them do the work.

I think I am paying for them (or at least this "mechanic") to learn how to work on square balers. He seemed to have lots of trouble timing it and finally figured out that one of the roll pins had broke on a gear on the knotter. They replaced the gear and the shaft, timed it again (sounded like they tried to time it 4 or 5 times). I bring it home thinking I probably have a lot of money in it but at least it will work when I go to use it this spring. I had the hay laying in my shed that I pulled out of it before sending it to the shop that needed baled up again. It failed to tie a single one of these bales. The inside knotter had twine wrapped around the duckbill making a ball of knots.

I noticed that the one bale in the chute that was tied (while at the dealership) had the knots at different places on the bale - one about three inches from the end of the bale and one about 8 inches from the end of the bale. It wasn't doing this when it went in. The dealership had pointed it out and said it was the result of the tucker fingers being worn....

Any ideas? Could one of the shaft be 180 degrees off due to the gear being put back on wrong?
 
[qudote="DaninKansas"](reply to post at 22:16:19 12/01/12) [/quote] Dan, check your wiper arm adjustment it should rub firmly against billhook to clean twine from billhook, also check twine knife it should be quite sharp to cleanly cut twine during knotting cycle, if these adjustments are not close the knots can hang up on billhook making a ball of twine on billhook, possably pulling one knot to be behind the other . also I would recomend picking up an owners manual they have a very good troubleshooting section in them. good luck, Andrew
 
The big problem with the 14T. They wasn't much of a baler when they were brand new. Look at the twine pressure coming out of the twine box. It could be too loose if it wadding up on the bill hooks. Not saying that's the problem but a place to start looking. Too much twine pressure usually cause twine stripping.
 
The first thing you should do right now is call the dealer and have them come out and show them what it is doing and tell them to either fix it or give you your money back. Get a manual if they still make them and read thru it several times and then follow the adjustments. Check for any parts that look worn. Good luck.
 
I agree with Retired Farmer. There's no reason for the 2 knots not to be at the same distance from the end of the bail unless maybe the wiper arm didn't push knot off of the billhook. After all there is only one needle lift shaft that powers both billhooks and twine discs at the same time. If baler is only miss tying a small percentage of ties then it usually requires ""adjustments not parts replaced"".
 
i deagree spud they bale after bale and not miss a tie but you need to read the book and set the knoters up right they must have been good baler there were at very large numbers sold
 
First baler I owned was a 14t. Mine too had problems on one side. I took it to JD dealer, they said they could fix. Well they didnt. It was worse. I did get labor back, though. On the other hand, the dealership I work for has a guy who has been there since the early seventies, and he is great with those balers. And he continues to go to school for the new stuff as well. Hard to believe, but its the first job he ever had, and he says it will be the last too! DEDICATED. Getting back to the baler, I sold it and bought a new holand 69 hayliner. That was a darn good baler.
 
We have a 14T use it every year, ties nice tight bales when everything is right. Sounds to me like a few things possibly could be wrong. Dull twine knife, knife arm not close enough to wipe the knot off the billhook, also not enough twine tension at the twine box can cause all sorts of weird things to happen. The way the twine is tensioned, I don't think you could really get too much tension. My suggestion to everybody with a tying problem is to turn it over by hand and watch it. You can usually see what is the problem, especially if it's only on one side.
 
Since the bale was most likely loose, the string and knot could have been slipped on the bale to miss alien it with the sister knot, it is virtually "impossible" for the knotter to do this on it's own. As for the young mechanic, he was in over his head from the start, it takes a special amount of insight to repair a knotter, and not many young guys have this or ever will.One of us old guys can make them look simple to fix, but are un-able to tell some one "how" to fix them, it's like a door opens up and we can see things that others can't, my door opened up for me when I was young,about 26, when I was at a Deere knotter clinic, they had a movie that showed the knot being made in slow motion, then showed in slow motion the things that happen when a knotter "misses",,it was like a revelation to me...
 
I agree 100% I had a 216 JD wire tie for years and me and my dad did all the work on those knotters, As well as some work for friends on a few other 14t balers. Now, my experience is the twine or wire tension coming from the box to the knotter is very important. Next thing is your twine guides, the porcelin ones, check these as well. Make sure none are missing, make sure that they don't have grooves worn deep into them, If there are any rollers lube them with penetrating oil and be sure that they turn freely, Another thing I have seen is the twine routed wrong, make sure this is right. double check, find a manual and a diagram if need be.
I have seen a lot of people try to time JD and hesston inline balers that had no business working on them at all. I am not a mechanic, but neither are those guys. I went to the dealer to ask the baler tech one day about setting up a hesston 4655 rail and roller clearance for the plunger. He had no idea what I was talking about so we went out in the yard and I shoed him on a new machine. He replied "Well We don't mess with those, there is no reason to, we just buy new rails and rollers and that restores your clearances, if they are that bad there is no adjustment to correct it."

I first thought about asking for all their worn out rails and rollers for myself, then thought better of that and said thanks and went home and set my plunger clearances with feeler gauges, took about 1/2 hour. Still runs today. Don't trust the mechanics all the time, They have their place but noone knows everything.
 
Yes a dull twine knife is one of the most over looked problems, if the knife is not near razor sharp it slows the actual cut down ever so slightly, and will "sinch" or draw the knot too tight on the bill hook making it harder for the wiper arm to wipe it clean, then it hangs on for a split second too long,as the bale gets it's next punch from the plunger ether breaking the string or weakening it to where it will break as it leaves the chute ..That slow motion movie showed that nicely. If anyone has ever seen that TV show about extremely slow motion cameras you can almost visualize this, It would be great if those guys would do a clip on knotters,,they would sell like hot cakes...
 
I just watched some of those, they are good but still don't show the things that are needed to be seen,,,I wonder who and when made the knotter that we use today was?? It really is a fantastic invention...
 
I cam up with this but still not much.. In 1936, a man named Innes, of Davenport, Iowa, invented an automatic baler for hay.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

It certinly isn't lack of tension on the twine - if anything I thought it had too much. It sounds like the "wipe" action and possibly the knife is the big issue here.

I haven't paid the dealership, the guy finished working on it Friday and left early to go deer hunting without figuring the bill.

I did agree with them that the chains needed replaced - lots of wear on them and in some cases there was so much slack you couldn't get proper tension. I didn't want to break a chain and cause it to lose time and destroy the baler.
 
I did a dumb thing this summer when a string broke.While re threading the needle I missed the roller. It kept breaking the twine and loading the billhook like you said, rethreaded putting the twine over the roller and it worked fine.
 
I have went out on service calls and found the twine on the back side of the needle roller, I always check the threading first then twine tension, then on from there...
 
Even though the 14t is a slow baler, the knotter still works very fast and if everything isn't just right it will drive you nuts to point of wanting to kill the guy who invented knotters. Nothing is more aggravating than having to jump off the tractor all time. Ours has a Wisconsin on it, and you can't crowd it all, but it still makes good bales.
 
Its quite possible that there is something that is wore out because of the age. It would surprise me if the dealer would even guarrentee the repair on that old of a baler with so many worn out parts. I would suggest getting a different baler. Thats probably not what you want to hear but it would be cheaper. I would assume the dealer was getting $100 dollars an hour and that baler is worth what maybe $200?
 
that baler is worth what maybe $200?

A little condescending don't you think? The guy is just trying to get his knotter working. Not looking for opinions of how much his baler is worth. My FIL loves riding around the field on his TO-30 with his 14T baling hay even though I'm passing him every few rows with my faster baler.
 
Truth is he wasn't far off, you can easily put 3 times their worth in parts, not wanting to hurt any ones feelings here ether...
 
I was just saying that its probably not worth it to take it to a dealer. Im not saying that it isnt a good baler or any thing I am just saying that at $85 to $100 dollars an hour its something that is old enough that yes a mechanic at a dealer would and could have a hard time timing it because the old guys that know how to time and fix them good are starting to dissappear. I am a mechanic at a dealer and do not really apprecieate the line " I am paying a mechanic to learn how to work on the 14t" or what ever it said. If its so easy why didnt he fix it him self. As a mechanic I can say that I learn new stuff every day and yes people pay for that, So what. I could time that 14t but it would take me a while so be it. he could just buy a manual and do it him self as well. We dont guarentee the work on those old balers because so often they have other wore out parts and it is cost prohibitave to replace all parts and those other worn out parts can cause what we fixed to break or have problems down the road.
 
I understand you're point of throwing good money after bad. One really has to be able to fix these old pieces himself. You'll go broke paying someone more to fix an old machine than it's worth.
 
Thats what I was trying to say. I farm with old stuff but I can get away with that because I fix everything and anything. And always watch the guy I work with who knows alot about the square balers when we have one in to learn about them and help when I can to see and learn more. But at age 23 those balers are almost 3 times older than I am. I wish I could watch that knotter movie Tim S was talking about.
 
I still work on a few for the neighbors, and never charge much for it,,I tell them it"s my way of apologizing for running them off the road with wide equipment once and a while....and it"s a funny thing about new and worn parts, I have seen balers come in with a new knotter on one side, an old worn one on the other and the new one will be the misser...more things I don"t understand, they are an amazing invention, and when you see a 348 punching bales out fast and furious it"s even more amazing...
 
John appleby from wisconsin invented the knotter in the late 1800s I beleive, it was first used on grain binders and his billhook design is basically the same as used today. His prototype was carved out of wood. He was a young man when he invented it and his parents farm where he lived at the time is between elkhorn and whitewater WI on hwy 12. There is a plaque on a rock stating this at the location of the farm.
The first appleby knotters were manufactured in nearby beloit WI.
 
Interesting,,he must have had some very forward thinking going on, I have heard it said that there were a couple of different versions of knotters but the one Deere and most every one else uses is the only one i know of, ,,Deere has made very little changes in the knotter and balers for a long time..
 
Knotters can be a mystery...I have an old NH S66 that has one side that looks original and pretty wore out...never misses a tie. The other side has a new knife arm and billhook, everything adjusted the best I can get it, and that's the side that misses once in a while...go figure
 
Ooh yes they can make you pull your hair out,,some times just advancing the twine disc by 1 shim makes a difference, and that's where that old movie opened my eyes to how the small changes would help or hurt the operation. When I was working at the local dealership we sold a bunch of 336's as they had just came out, I was sent out to start every one of them on there first day in the field, and some times a new knotter would act up. My boss always said that if you make the customer happy that first day it made a difference from then on.
 
I figured if they got it working for for $1000 I'd have $1200 in a working reliable baler. Expensive for a 14T but good enough for the small acrage and tractor that will be pulling it. I could easily have spent $3000+ on a 336 and still had to spend the $1000 to get it to work properly too.

The problem is I don't want to spend $1200 and have a baler that doesn't work at all when I had a baler that I could get by with (if I had too) for $200.

I might end up having it out with the dealership when I explain to them that I don't pay people work on stuff - I pay them to fix it. If I'm paying $100 an hour for a mechanic to work on something I expect a trained profession to be doing the work. I could read the manual and not know what I'm doing for free in my shed.
 
Yes you were working with a good line of thought, it may still work out if the dealer trys to work with you....It"s just one of those things that some times don"t work out,,Darn it
 

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