I have a Ford 542 bailer that has worked great - now the feed fork timing is going bad each time I hit any tough bunch of hay. What I have discovered is that when the pickup fills up a little too fast, rather than bogging the whole bailer down, the feed forks appear to actually hesitate or stop momentarily, but the plunger keeps going. I caught it happening tonight (no damage this time) and, after stopping, I found that the inner forks were still 180 degrees from the outer forks, as they should be, but the forks had "slipped" about 1/4 plunger stroke behind where they are supposed to be (and where they had been when I checked the feed fork-to-plunger timing about 15 minutes earlier). I can see that 1 or 2 more similar "slips" and the plunger would have bashed the inner forks (again!). I dismounted and dismantled the feed fork gear box to see if any apparent problems with the gears . . . nothing apparent at first inspection - Any similar experiences out there, or thoughts on what could be causing the slipage between the plunger and forks? Any help or ideas would be great - Thanks in advance!
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