JD 14T missing knots

I know this has been somewhat covered in the previous posts (and yes, I probably need to get a manual). But we are having a nice streak of weather here in CNY and I've gut a bunch of hay down so I am hoping for some quick advice.

I have a JD 14T which I run with a hay accumulator. Out of every 30 - 40 bales or so a couple will fail to tie (it is usually only the left-hand knotter , the one closest to the outer edge of the baler). The other weird thing is that when the knotter fails to tie, it's almost always two bales in a row. Then things go back to normal. BTW, I use 7200 sisal twine.

I've read that the needles may have to be adjusted with respect to the twine disks. I have two questions. Are the twine disks the ones that actually cut the twine? How exactly do you adjust those needles with respect to them?

Thanks for reading.

The baler is still 'worn out', has baled multiple thousand bales over almost 50 years, sat unused and rusting away in a machine shed for at least 15 years, has rust holes in the bottom of the bale chamber you could "throw a cat through" and when fixed with the oversize key, went right on baling with almost no misses like it did twenty years ago after I ran about 50 bales (actually four bales about tweleve times) of old hay through in to loosen up the knotters and the rest of the parts to loosen everything up. I did break down over the summer and bought a 'new' baler on eBay, a 24T for $400.

Ed

All good advice so far. I know what you mean about having hay down now and need advice. My 14T was doing the same thing as yours, but sometimes it was 3-4 in a row. On mine, the knot was hanging up on the bill hook. As more hay pushed into the chamber, the pressure broke the twine still in the bill hook. The next bale wouldn' tie because of the previous bale's knot still stuck in the bill hook. After wrestling with it for some time, I happened to swap the postition of the twine in the twine box. I don't know if I was feeding the left from the left or from the right, but I do know that it solved the problem. I imagine that it had something to do with the twine tensioner as the twine comes out of the rolls - I imagine that one was tighter than the other although I couldn't feel any difference. It doesn't make sense to me that the twine tension could affect the knot releasing from the bill hook after the tie, but it quit missing! At the time it didn't matter and I ain't gonna mess with it now!

Good luck

Once it does that the wiper can"t wipe the knot off so it is stuck. Normally the billhook is only holding the two pieces of twine that are coming out of the knot for the knife part of the wiper arm to cut when it passes...

Is there a knot in either end of the twine that goes around the bale?

If the twine is twisted on both ends like a knot was formed but slipped apart, you can increase the billhook tension by tightening the nut that has a spring under it on the end of the billhook. That will cause the bill hook to hold onto the ends of the twine that come out of the knot more firmly to tighten the knot so it won't fall apart. If you tighten the bill hook to much, the wiper arm won't be able to wipe the knot off the billhook, so just adjust it a small amount at a time.

The discs hold the twine while the bale is being formed. The twine is cut by a knife on the wiper arm which is what 'wipes' the knot off the billhook after the knot is tied.

You adjust the needles to get a tiny bit of clearance between the needle and the disc on the bottom and the knotter frame on the right by loosening the bolts that hold the needle to the arm that moves the needles up thru the bale chamber and then adjusting the needles side to side or up and down to get the clearance you want. A tiny gap or even barely touching the knotter frame is ok, the needle needs to just clear the disc.

The tucker fingers grab the twine as the needle brings it up and put it in position for the disc to grab it as well, check that the tucker fingers are activating, they are the half circle discs just on top of the bale chamber underneath the knotters.

Check the chains for excessive slack or wear, our 14T worked much better with a new set of chains. They are cheap and easy to change as well.

Make sure you are feeding the left knotter from the left twine box and the right from the right to keep the twine tension correct. I had that crossed last season and had a devil of a time figuring out the problem with the right knotter, it's twine path was so short the knotter was very inconsistent in tieing due to the lack of twine tension.

My 14T manual is with the baler down at the in-laws, but let me know some more info and I can try to help a bit.

Last thing, what is your bale tension set at, if you don't have enough tension it can cause problems tieing consistently. To much tenstion can cause knots to come loose and twine to break as well, you have to find a point between those extremes.

There is no knot on either end of the twine, but the ends do look like they tied and just slipped apart.

HTH
Steve