Ford 532 baler questions

dhermesc

Well-known Member
Did Ford build these or did they come from somebody else and get painted blue?

Anyone have experience with one? Are the knotters a copy of someone else's work? I am looking at buying one as a possible backup and a guy I know has one that he'd sell cheap. He used it as his main baler but only puts up 300 bales a year. He's renting the ground to me now and wants to get rid of the baler to make room in his shop. What is a going rate for these? I've seen good New Holland balers of similar age (I am assuming 268, 269s are about the same age) go from $1500 to $2800 in working condition.
 
New Idea built the balers for Ford. Never had a 532 but had a 542, just made a little more heavy duty. Never had a problem with it and ran it for years. Made a nice bale. I sold it probably 30 years ago. Wish I still had it though I don't bale square bales much anymore. I hear that parts like needles and such are pretty hard to come by. I think I still have a couple of needles laying around here somewhere.
 
This would be a strictly back up baler for a NH276. I know it was put in the shed working and I think I can buy it for $400. All it has to do is work for one day when the 276 is down with an issue and it's paid for itself.
 
(quoted from post at 08:31:05 11/11/22) This would be a strictly back up baler for a NH276. I know it was put in the shed working and I think I can buy it for $400. All it has to do is work for one day when the 276 is down with an issue and it's paid for itself.


At one point I as considering a back-up baler but then I decided that it would be unlikely that I would keep it ready to go so it wouldn't be much help.
 
Great place to borrow chains and what not.

I keep an extra New Idea 325 corn picker in the shed. It has an 8 roll bed where the one I use has a 12 roll. Last year one of the
gear boxes that runs the outer gathering chains on the 12 roll went bad. It was mid afternoon and I said to heck with it, I'll get
the 8 roll out. It took me the rest of the afternoon and most of the next morning to swap back all the chains and other parts I had
''borrowed'' over the years, It didn't husk as clean as the 12 roll did, so I had one big crib full of dirty corn that was harder
to get back out.

When I got all done, I took the gathering chains off the 12 roll, took the top off the gear box and it was just a bearing right at
the top of the shaft. I went to town and they had one at the auto parts store. I was less than an hour and a half fixing it start
to finish. If I hadn;t had the ''spare'' picker, I'd have been back in the field half a day sooner.
 
It's worth to me would be it's weight x the local scrap price. That's nothing against the baler in it's day. It's just that it's exceedingly difficult to find parts for today. Some things are available but anything specific to that baler will not be available. Knotters are the same or similar enough to NH of the day that those parts are mostly available. However, things like the over running clutch which does fail are NLA so you're forced to make stuff and work around things. IF it's a good working baler that will do what you want I'm sure it's worth more than scrap.... but I wouldn't pay as much for it as a Deere that you can buy parts for.
I have one. We put a lot of bales through it... but I wouldn't go buy one today as a baler I planned to use much.

Rod
 

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