Greenie needs help with MF 41 sickle bar

Well I hope someone knowledgeable is on the forum today. We are doing the thing we always said we wouldn't: cutting our own hay. Last year a neighbor cut for us & we tedded, raked & baled. This year we picked up a MF 4! dynabalance, as our neighbor needed a tranny in his tractor. We are using the 29 hp Kubota tractor.
We've adjusted everything we can and the mower is cutting just fine. Problem is the cut grass gathering on the inner shoe to the point where the first 2 feet of the bar aren't cutting. I'm having to dismount twice to clear it as I go around a 6 acre field. I'm following the outer shoe marks from the last pass as it says in the book. Have tried more & less PTO speed, and drive speed. Dorn't seem to make a difference. Any suggestions?

Does the out end of the mower bar have a grass board that moves the cut grass away from the standing grass. It should leave
a bare strip next to the uncut grass.

Hiya - It has a 2 prong thing that sticks out, I think to help with that.
Is the rule with a sickle bar PTO fast, land speed slow?

Thinking about it. I've been following the marks made by the outer show when I do the next row. Don't see a bare strip tho'.
I've heard these "plug up" and that must be what happens, as I get a big roll of grass on the inner shoe & then it doesn't cut.

If you go too slow, the cutterbar plugs. If too fast you leave long stubble. Mower should be run at p0to speed, 540 rpm.
when running right, the crop will look like a waterfall as it is being cut. Your ground speed helps the material fall off the
cutterbar. Except some material like alfalfa looks like it has been never cut. That is fun to figure out where to drive and
a grass board is absolutely necessary.

There has to be a BARE strip next to the uncut grass and about 12" to 18" wide. That keeps the inner end of the cutterbar
from plugging!

OH BOY It sounds like we're missing something.
The book I have calls the prongs a divider. I can't see anything else in there that's helpful. Going back to the field to look at that thing.

That 2 prong thing is the m41 grass board. As you mow it sweeps the grass in toward the tractor about 1 foot or more.
That bare ground is where you run the inner shoe on the next mowing round. You can't mow over down hay with your
sickle mower, it will plug every time. Is your tractor big enough to lift the mower when you make turns so it does not
drag and plug?

M41 is a very good mower. Do you have a manual? Tips of the guards should be pointed upward a little bit , not down.
angles and slight adjustments make a big difference in how this mower cuts. You can quickly clear minor plugs by
lifting the mower and backing up a few feet....if the little tractor will lift it high enough.

Roger and Hay hay, Thanks for your advice. I think that divider/grass board is adjusted too high for this fall's short crop.
I did get the waterfall look, but when I get to the thick part it jams up. Trying to get a bare spot should be interesting. Will have to fool with it some more in am.
It's almost dark here in Maine now, but I think, ragged as it is, I've cut nearly half the field. Kath

PS - Yes I can lift the mower. Don't deal with corners very well yet. The manual says to use rt brake, but with hydro that stops me dead. Maybe tomorrow I'll try that with the cruise set.

What part of Maine are you in? I live in the Old Town-Bangor area and I have a MF41 mower. It works great for me. Maybe you are trying to cut hay that is second growth and not very tall. If you are nearby I might be able to take a look and help you out. Or you could come take a look at my mower to see how it is set up.

hello- I've been using sickle mowers for many years, and also have a MF Dynabalance. It's a good mower when you figure it all out. I regularly cut 15-20 acres at a time with no more than a plug or two, often times none at all. There can be many factors causing your problems. Most common is cutting grass that is already been cut. Not sure what type of grass hay you have, but if mostly Orchardgrass the 2nd cutting will not have much stems and that makes it more likely to plug. Sickles work easier on first cut tall grasses like orchard or timothy or late cut tall fescue. Also plug more when hay is wet. More difficult cutting with clover. Are your guards ledger plates real close to your sections (knives), they need to be or it won't cut proper (e.g., try cutting with your scissors at home with a gap between them). I use a outer grass stick and also an inner grass stick (these are narrow metal and not the wood boards). They move cut hay away, and like others said the outer grass stick or in your case a swathboard should clear a path of bare grass for you to run your inner shoe at base of the cutter bar for next pass. You run the inner shoe over this bare ground swath that is about 10 inches wide. If you are not getting a clear swath of cleared cut grass on inner shoe on next pass that is likely your problem. When I see a plug starting I lift bar a couple feet and go in reverse a couple feet and it usually clears out. When you start forward again you need to keep bar raised until to get to the hay that has not been cut yet, drop bar and keep going. Speed and PTO vary by crop, I run mine below 540 pto, around 500 or so, in 1st High, but my MF tractors are not geared like your Kubota. You will eventually get a feel for proper ground speed and pto for your conditions. I also tilt the cutter bar angle up a little. Keep that thing lubed, there are a lot of zerk grease fittings, I usually grease every 8 hrs of use.

I agree with all FinnMD says. The biggest problem people have with these mowers is because they don't keep them in repair and greased.

I would not try that, it is a method used best with a clutch that you can feather while applying the right brake. The 41 is the only mower that I have used for many years and when set correctly it's hard to beat. Since you have a hydro it's probably faster to back up and turn versus using the locked brake method. Take your time you'll get the hang of it

Hi Phil - Would love to have help with this, but am sure we've got the problem figured out and I live in Harmony - around a hr from you. I'll go out soon and try to set the sticks lower, as it is indeed a mostly rather short 2nd cut. Don't know how much adjustment is possible. But the cut grass isn't being moved over and when I hit a thick spot it starts to collect.

Mornin' Finn - We are cutting a mere 10 acres of mostly bluegrass with a bit of timothy for our horses. Hope the weather holds till I figure this out. I hope there's some adjustability here for shorter grass.
I had figured out last night that I can sometimes back up to clear it if I catch it right away. Probably not Kosher for the adjustments, but I also raised & lowered it - bounced a bit.
We just got this mower from a guy who is more mechanic than farmer, so everything looks up to par and I had my mechanic neighbor check it over also.
Wish me luck!

MF#1 - Thanks for the turning tip, will try. I assume you don't have to disconnect pto to stop and back. Am running at PTO speed now and fooling with my ground speed, but the main problem seems to be the cut grass. K

I hope this will get to everyone, don't know how to do that yet.
We're in bidness! MaGyvered a piece of plywood to the prongs and it's much better. I bet before we do the other field we can do even better. Only getting about 4" of clear ground, but it's enuf if I'm careful.

I think what you meant to say was that you "farmered" it ;-) So long as it works it doesn't matter.
Yes you can leave the pto engaged while turning. My mower "lost" the prongs a long time ago so I used an old telephone pole brace, about 32 inches long, bolted it to the 'head' bent it back about 20 degrees and away I went. Worked for many years until it broke and I got a correct headboard. May want to put a little more bend in the prongs and see if you can get more than 4 inches. It helps if you pull up to where you last mowed, put the blade down where the shoe is in the cleared area and look at how close/far your front right tire is to the un-mowed hay. It takes some time but soon you'll be able to stay in the "groove" and have less clogs. Those clogs can also be caused by worn blades or guards at the mower end b/c they are a pain to swap out, might be worth a look. Good luck with it!

I guess that's why sickle bar mowers disappeared COMPLETELY here in the UK about 20 years ago, in favour of drum or disk mowers. Before that, I cut about 30 acres every year with a NH 445e , and although a great mower in its day, if you ran into a bit of already cut hay it clogged, if the grass was short and/or damp it clogged, if you hit a mole hill it clogged and finishing out a tapering field was always time consuming - that's the nature of sickle bar mowers! In my conditions, a clog just a couple of times going round a 6 acre field would have been very good going! A field that took me a day to cut with the sickle bar took 3 hours with the same width of drum mower. As a matter of interest, why are sickle bar mowers still in use in the USA?
Jim

Mornin' from Maine - Can tell you we have a sickle bar because our compact 29 hp tractor can only run it or one of those expensive little drums from Italy that only does 5' at a time.
With our farmered fix we were able to finish with no plugging up. We are also looking to improve on our fix with a bend before we do our other field. It is easy for me if I'm attentive to sight in the bottom corner of the bucket in the groove, and adjustable as well.
Quite please with our mower now & will be maintaining it as well as we can as we learn more.
Seems we traded dragging irrigation around in Oregon to haying here. K

Why?....old, and thus cheap. Mostly used by the hobby farmer. Also, very low power required, so good for old gas tractors.

Interesting. Gas tractors just simply didn't happen here in the UK. I guess gas here was always far too expensive to use for agriculture. Tractors in the UK went from TVO to exclusively diesel maybe around 60+ years ago. Most small farms here, if they still do cut their own hay, run maybe 5 ft cut drum mowers (PZag or similar) - something as small as a MF 35 can easily handle that, and in our conditions (often damp grass, often laid and tangled) the difference in cutting performance is like chalk and cheese! Sickle bar mowers simply disappeared as drum mowers came in!
Jim

And very few drum mowers here. I have 2 Reese drum mowers and really like them, but disc mowers are the most common here. American farmers tend to buy what they see their neighbors running. I think many of the small field implements used in the UK are very applicable to the hobby farmer usage. But they are fairly rare here...like my Haybobs.