JD 346 knotter help please

soldbybrock

New User
ok so 6 hours later me and my tractor mechanic are at a stand still .... granted he is a NH guy but has over 20 years of repairs under his belt and well I'm the daughter of a mechanic, but still a novice with a service manual and 6 years of haying and knotter troubles in the past that I have usually work through thanks to online videos and reading

anyhow here is the stumper: one knotter is not cutting the second string ... or maybe the second string isn't even getting in to the right place on the billhook to be cut (at cutting speed its hard to tell) ... then it goes and wraps up around the roller half the time on the billhook making a mess and can at times pop the roller out of the tension arm grove

when you stop the tractor to look, you have no string in the twine disk holder and two strings going from the front to the back and the knotter makes a knot out of one string and a frayed half cut from the second string

see photo ... and oddly sometimes it missed the second string completely and you get a single string knot ... that photo also attached

and yes the knife blade has been changed out and the scraper blade is tight
 
(quoted from post at 19:59:32 06/21/17) ok so 6 hours later me and my tractor mechanic are at a stand still .... granted he is a NH guy but has over 20 years of repairs under his belt and well I'm the daughter of a mechanic, but still a novice with a service manual and 6 years of haying and knotter troubles in the past that I have usually work through thanks to online videos and reading

anyhow here is the stumper: one knotter is not cutting the second string ... or maybe the second string isn't even getting in to the right place on the billhook to be cut (at cutting speed its hard to tell) ... then it goes and wraps up around the roller half the time on the billhook making a mess and can at times pop the roller out of the tension arm grove

when you stop the tractor to look, you have no string in the twine disk holder and two strings going from the front to the back and the knotter makes a knot out of one string and a frayed half cut from the second string

see photo ... and oddly sometimes it missed the second string completely and you get a single string knot ... that photo also attached

and yes the knife blade has been changed out and the scraper blade is tight
 
i owned a 346 fore about 10years never found trouble that i could not find the help i needed in the op manual read it carefully set ever thing like they tell you and it will tie 499 out of500
 
Could be several things, check where the twine goes through the clamp between the twine box and the knotter, check the tucker finger and see if the needle is bent
 
Loosen the tensioners up so that you can turn the flywheel by hand. The cycle the knotters and see what is going on. I would bet that your tucker fingers are out of adjustment or the rod that actuates them is bent. Even if the tucker fingers are not the issue you need to be checking the knotters out at slow speed to see what they are doing correctly and what they are not doing.

As for pictures, if your a new member you will need to ask Kim to allow you to post pictures.
 
anyhow here is the stumper: one knotter is not cutting the second string ... or maybe the second string isn't even getting in to the right place on the billhook to be cut (at cutting speed its hard to tell) ... then it goes and wraps up around the roller half the time on the billhook making a mess and can at times pop the roller out of the tension arm grove

Try a video camera to film the knotter when it does the tying cycle. Yes it is hard to see as it is so fast but with a video cam you may be able to slow down the playback to see what is going on. not sure this will work though. good luck.
 
Yes, you need to check tucker fingers, make sure they are working exactly the same. There is a small L shaped wire under there too, acts to catch the twine over in place, check those. Last, and the thing I found causes most issues are the rollers that ride inside the knotter drive gear. If those rollers get stuck rather than roll, a flat gets worn on them, then the bill hook will not open all the way and grab both strings.
 

Your twine is not making it from the needle to the twine disc. This is, as already said twice, due to tucker finger adjustment. It is worth remembering that the first thing to check when a JD knotter is not tying properly is the tucker fingers.
 
Check on YouTube some good videos there.It takes time and patience to figure these out i bought a baler that two guys worked on all day and couldn't fix turned out the bolt holding the needle was loose.Don't count on new parts being ok seen a guy work all day on a baler in desperation he changed out a new piece he put in earlier and it worked fine both the original and new were bad.But most of all be careful my cousin was working on a baler and he went to pull a piece of twine out of the way and it tripped five hours of surgery but he still has a hand.I was the lucky guy who held the pieces together it takes a long time to go twenty miles to the hospital. Be careful and good luck
 
This may help.
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About 99% sure there is some video or DVD online for most deere bakers it may help. Don't rule out bad twine sometimes either. Besides what others said you may have a worn part, gear twi e disc etc. Good to have a spare knitter too.
 
My NH 273 was doing similar things. Got fed up and put a bale of plastic in, rolled by hand, a couple of tweaks and had three consistent complete ties on both knotters, no hang ups on billhooks, missed twines. Was going to bale a small field until I lost steering on my tractor. (see other thread)
 
Twine finger out of adjustment, or little bits of hay are caught between the rest stop, not letting the fingers return to rest fully, but this usually (but not always) makes both knotters miss-tie. I have had to 'advance' the finger adjustment over the needle slot to the very limit of the tolerance given in the book, make sure you take up all the linkage slack when you check the adjustment or they won't advance far enough. When I have had rally niggley knotter faults, clean off the knotter area, film the knotter with your phone and playback in slow mo, amazing what you can see!
 
Keeping a sharp twine knife is a good start, yours could be a bolt on knife,if it has an up-dated wiper arm, and like the others said having the wiper arm meeting the Billhook nice and firm is also necessary,,and silly things like having the twine threaded through the needle on the wrong side of the needle roller (yes I have seen that happen) a worn cam lobe in the drive wheel where the wiper arm is driven too can pose a problem. But a Dull twine knife can be a major issue that is often over looked, If the knife is dull, it will start pushing on the twine instead of cutting it right away,,the timing of the bill hook will still be progressing,at that point the knot is being "Cinched" tighter than normal on the Bill hook,,as the wiper arm/knife blade pushes harder on the twine it will finally cut the twine, but a little too slow for the timing of the bill Hook,,now the knot is very tight on the bill hook, and won't wipe off well, if not at all,,at this point the plunger is adding hay and pushing the completed bale on out the chamber, and yanking the knot off the Bill hook ether breaking the twine or fraying the knot to where it will break as it leaves the chute,The knotter is a complex but also a simple mechanism, and the history of how Ed Nolt came up with the idea in 1939 is a good story.
 
I would start by checking the tucker fingers AND the hay dog(s)/springs. If that doesn't resolve it, THEN I would look at needle adjustment. I forget those specs right off, but they're in your manual. Basically they have to have a certain amount of force against the back/side of the knotter frame as they pass. If they're set such that they do not strike/apply some pressure, you will get the results you describe. But again, I reiterate... check the hay dogs and tucker fingers first as those are far more common ailments and easier to fix.
This is also assuming that visually the twine disc timing is the same on both sides.

Rod
 
(quoted from post at 04:09:07 06/22/17)
Your twine is not making it from the needle to the twine disc. This is, as already said twice, due to tucker finger adjustment. It is worth remembering that the first thing to check when a JD knotter is not tying properly is the tucker fingers.

thanks to everyone who has replied. there are some things we did do that I didn't go over but wanted to try and stay simple and see what answer people can back with

and yes we have run it dry and turned the fly wheel by hand. it works at that point, and then when at speed with hay is when the problems come

and we did move the needle over, but I know the mechanic and I kinda glossed over the tucker fingers - so that's where we will go back to this morning

and I like the idea of do a video also
 
It helps to provide as much info as possible when diagnosing knotter problems....

That said, what you just describe is a dead giveaway for a hay dog or tucker finger problem.

Rod
 
Thanks again to everyone who helped. My tractor mechanic is a NH guy. I had to demand that we adjust the tucker fingers.

Well after many hours of doing everything but he let me adjust the tucker fingers ...... 3 turns later problem solved

anyhow I got a great deal of education on my knotters, we cleaned up some loose things and he also got a great lesson too

TUCKER FINGER

here is to a now uncomplicated hay season. thanks again everyone
 
Those tucker fingers have to be adjusted just "so". Glad you got it fixed. You know exactly what it should feel like now.

I have an 80 year old retired baler mechanic that comes out if I am stumped. He delivered the first 14t in the county way back when. He told me
that the baler is the most neglected but most precision piece of equipment on the farm. With a combine you can take it to the field and adjust it
up but if it doesn't thresh right you can blame it on the crop or conditions. If a baler won't tie there is no one to blame but the man with the
wrenches! It's so true on those old square balers. I still put about 3000 a year through the 24t that started its life right here on this farm. It's
baled hundreds of thousands of bales but I wouldn't trade it.
 

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