Bad day with the 230 baler.

I got a call to help a fella bale his hay. His baler broke. I took my trusty 230 over. I baled about a hundred twenty, then it missed while changing twine balls. No biggie, re threaded the needle and tripped the knotter........It"s all bad from here. Something happened. The knotter chain drive broke. It had been repaired before. I repaired it again. Made sure it was set back, turned it through a tying cycle. Everything looked OK. I hopped on the tractor, engaged the pto and started the next bale. Then it happened. Bang goes the needle as it breaks.

So, my question is, how hard is it going to be to find a needle or set of needles for my baler. Please don"t say junk it, I really like this baler!

Help!!

Stumpy

Weld it. I've done several successfully

I'm running a welded needle in my 271 New Holland, and to be honest, I think it is better then the non welded one.

Stumpy,like jon & lazy said get it welded. Take it to some one who knows what there doing you may what to take the other needle with yeah, so the repaired one will come out right.
"Back-in-the-day" Dad took one to the oldest machine shop I ever seen! It so happened his forge was up and running. Told dad to go back and bring the good needle. Whata creepy place! dad left me there. The man said very little, was dirtest &biggest look'en man I ever seen ( I was 8 or so) he said "did you break this?" I shuck my head no "boy don't you talk? I said yes. He said do you know what I am? said no, "I'am blacksmith" well that made sense looken at him and his shop. Well dad got back. Blacksmith said "you pull this handle real slow" as the forge got hotter he went to work. I don't remember how long it took. But when dad I left with a repaired needle. Blacksmith said that needle won't break again in that spot!! Years past and the old blacksmith passed away. Local farmers made sure that he was proply layed to rest. That needle knotted thousands of bales well after his passing. So Stumpy (if your still reading this) hee hee. I get it repaired...My 11 cents worth.

I am going to repair it. We took the broken needle out today and installed the repaired one that was in the toolbox. It"s pretty close. Needs a slight shim to get the clearance to the knotter frame, but is going to be OK.

I"m taking the broken one to work in the morning. I"ll operate on it after work with some nickel rod. I am a decent welder and am confident enough to tackle it now that I have a plan on how to get it back to the correct shape. Stay tuned, pics to follow in the next couple of days.

Stumpy

PS, thanks for the story, brought a smile to my face envisioning it.

Had parts off our 220 on Ebay earlyer this year .Had very little enterest in the parts. So was a waste of time listing them .Was the Bought new By my Dad ,was set to use Plastic Twine & got so that didnt work so went to Regular Twine sorta worked then ,But the Thrower was Just Junk /over the wagon or on the Tongue.

Still got those parts?