John Deere 336 problem and possible solution

I tried every setting on the packer forks to no avail.

I looked inside, both hay dogs present and working.

One set of resistors installed as a matching pair.

Surfaces evenly rusty / polished.

Knots look identical

Tried cranking down the bale tension on the long side to no avail. Tried REALLY cranking it, no change.

Got to looking at the chute and the chains as ours is set to drop on the ground. Instead of a carriage bolt three are hex head. 2 of those are on the side that is always shorter. One of those 2 is loose and double nutted so when bales push past they cock it sideways.

My theory is that bolt is increasing the bale density on that side causing my troubles! So, off to find a few carriage bolts and some dry hay to bale!

Have fed both sides of pickup and various size windrow. Doesn't matter, always a consistant bale with the same slight banana.

I'm curious about the dogs, thought I counted a pair. But 3 would make more sense.

Ken

Re the windrow, our single raked windows (9 ft rake) fill the entire pickup, the whole width and up to the precompression / control tines.

On thinner stuff I've played with which side and it doesn't seem to matter. It always comes out the same. Feeding from the far side only seems to encourage auger wrapping from getting outside the end of the auger.

The only stuff it doesn't like is when the windrow is so thick there are only 4 flakes in a 36" bale. Horse people hate that too so I don't have to worry much!

First and article I found after writing:
Link

Next the post I wrote first:
Around here by the river valley, if you miss the dry spell in June and cut late, the hay is very thick. A windrow raked from about 14 ft of tedded out hay has to be baled in first gear and you have to ride the clutch. Sometimes when you hit a big chunk and have to clutch, a bale will come out and plop on top of the last bale to come out.

Bale weight is around 40-50 lb normally. Can be up to 60 lb when pushing the moisture levels when rain is coming. At this weight and 36" the double raked windrows can pop bales out like every 10-15 feet. 100 bales an acre sounds familiar.

That would be 2 - 2.5 tons per acre, similar to what irrigated guys get isn't it? Does alfalfa pack tighter or something? We sell our hay to horse people, they don't like heavy bales and if the slightest bit damp the hay will mold or heat and lose protein in the really tight bales.

Maybe the species of grasses are different? There are some fine/thin grasses here, I think called orchard grass in the US that make really dense bales. It isn't usually baled and only seems to flourish in pasture.

Our land is unirigated, unfertilized, and unlimed, was seeded about 10 years ago, and still produces about 100 bales per acre when cut late.

If we fertilized and limed and reseeded we could get 100 bales/acre in June and 50 / acre again in August.

After being out west this spring I can see why this seems weird, our pasture land likely produces as much grass as some of the hay field there.

On the flip side, it rains all the darn time and is extremely humid. We have 14 hrs of daylight most of the summer too. Ideal grass growing conditions, extremely poor hay harvest conditions.

So yes, if you try and hurry in big windrows here the baler will gobble up hay and stuff 6", 9" etc flakes into the bales.

I suspect adjusting the pickup speed would help stop this but we try to stick to single raked windrows.

Most places in the east are like this, we are bit more so due to a big river next to us and good soil.

Bale weight is around 40-50 lb normally. Can be up to 60 lb when pushing the moisture levels when rain is coming. At this weight and 36" the double raked windrows can pop bales out like every 10-15 feet. 100 bales an acre sounds familiar.

That would be 2 - 2.5 tons per acre, similar to what irrigated guys get isn't it? Does alfalfa pack tighter or something? We sell our hay to horse people, they don't like heavy bales and if the slightest bit damp the hay will mold or heat and lose protein in the really tight bales.

Maybe the species of grasses are different? There are some fine/thin grasses here, I think called orchard grass in the US that make really dense bales. It isn't usually baled and only seems to flourish in pasture.

Our land is unirigated, unfertilized, and unlimed, was seeded about 10 years ago, and still produces about 100 bales per acre when cut late.

If we fertilized and limed and reseeded we could get 100 bales/acre in June and 50 / acre again in August.

After being out west this spring I can see why this seems weird, our pasture land likely produces as much grass as some of the hay field there.

On the flip side, it rains all the darn time and is extremely humid. We have 14 hrs of daylight most of the summer too. Ideal grass growing conditions, extremely poor hay harvest conditions.

So yes, if you try and hurry in big windrows here the baler will gobble up hay and stuff 6", 9" etc flakes into the bales.

I suspect adjusting the pickup speed would help stop this but we try to stick to single raked windrows.

Most places in the east are like this, we are bit more so due to a big river next to us and good soil.