IH 46 baler

Fordfarmer

Well-known Member
My son is looking for a small square baler to use behind his Ford 4000. Looking at starting with 10 acres +/-. Mostly looking at New Holland, since that's what I'm familiar with and we have a dealer not TOO far away.
Saw a craigslist ad for an IH 46 just a short drive down the road, and very reasonably priced, assuming it works. I know nothing about IH balers. Good? Just ok? Run away? How is parts availability? That seems to be an issue with anything more than 10 years old and associated with Fiat.
 
I started out with a 46 , and it worked reasonably well. The 47 that came after was almost identical, really just a bit of paint difference. Would be comparable to a 268 NH , or perhaps a 273 NH for capacity and reliability. Parts shouldn?t be a huge issue, as they built thousands and thousands of these balers. And any parts no longer available through CaseIH, could be scavenged off of a wreck. I have a 47 still sitting in the shed complete with thrower.
 
People either lover or hate IH balers. I have one and it works pretty well. I highly suggest getting a manual as adjustments are critical to it working properly. I'd also suggest buying 7500 twine as quality twine is critical also and 9000 twine has became a lot less quality than it used to be. They weren't made to use plastic.
 
Used a 46 for several years and ours had the thrower on and very little tying problems. big thing on tying is up-down-sideways play in plunger. And use only the heavies sisle twine you can get, they were made befor the plastic twine so not designed for that. And thin twine willalso make tying problems, Did not have those problems when we had ours because the thin and plastic were not readily avaible when we quit baling in 1980. And easy pulling as we pulled ours with a late JD B with the thrower and wagon at 28HP and depending on the 4000 you either have 48hp if 4 cylinder or 52 hp if 3 cylinder. Just remember if you have to make a panic stop if with the independant PTO you need at least 3 arms to control things, one to steer, one on pto lever and one on throttle as you need to slow engine down at same time as putting pto out of gear and keeping tractor and baler where it is supposed to be. Had the 3 cylinder 4000 but was after baler was gone. And the JD B did not have live pto.
 
We went and looked at it. It's been kept inside and is in better than expected condition, with the exception of a rotted and blown out tire. Which means the other one is suspect. The biggest issue might be the rear hitch. We have hay baskets, and I don't see a good way of attaching the short, directly behind the chamber hitch they need.
 
(quoted from post at 09:33:53 09/14/19) We went and looked at it. It's been kept inside and is in better than expected condition, with the exception of a rotted and blown out tire. Which means the other one is suspect. The biggest issue might be the rear hitch. We have hay baskets, and I don't see a good way of attaching the short, directly behind the chamber hitch they need.


There is a 46 on tractor house that has a hitch mounted on it. The hitch on my MF just bolts up to the chamber with four carriage bolts.
 
Thanks. I'll take a look at it. That's
how the hitch mounts on my New Holland as
well. I just didn't think the chamber on
this 46 was thick/strong enough. Its
definitely thinner than the chamber on my
NH.
 
If I understand you correctly you are wanting a hitch centered under the bale chamber. If That is what you are wanting then you will have to go at least 20 years newer as no baler had a hitch at that time. The chamed was not high enough to clear a wagon toung set there, they were all set to the right of the chamber. And to push the bales up to top of the bale wagon to dump them into it would bake setting the tension impossible to do to keep it even as needs to because of the bale weight. The hitch was easily adjusted for length with just 1 pin but not adjustable for side to side. Sounds like you need to be looking for a baler of 2000 up and not a 1950's model baler.
 
The only balers I know of that might have centered rear hitches are the Hesston and Case/IH inline balers. My baler is an early '90's New Holland, and the one we had before that was a mid-'70's NH. Both had offset rear hitches, and had to use a hitch made by the company that made the hay baskets that bolts to the bale chamber. That's what I'll have to make for this IH.
 
Look for welds on needles. Needle string rollers free,
Look for welds on shafts
Look all key ways for wear or loose on shafts .
Look at pto u joints for wear. loose .
Gear fittings having grease bullied up not all bad. And 👀 for grease fittings on knitters to see they were not skipped.
Seen a lot of good pretty machines never greased. That?s why they are stored ,wore out .
 

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