New Holland Super 68 Bale shape

I know your story by heart. After giving up on my old case baler I purchased a 68, I had the same problem, after 2000 bales I started making my rows extra heavy almost to the point of breaking shear pins, It seems to bale really nice tight bales that way. Other than that I love my baler It sure is nice to be a farmer and not a case baler mechanic. By the way if anyone has any problems with a old case baler I'm an expert.

We have moved the teeth all over the tine bar with no real results. an old mechanic in this area sugested the speed may be too slow however it is about 69-70 strokes per minute no load and the book recomends 65 also he sugested as a last resort to retard the tine bar timing by 2 links. Have You or your dad ever heard of this? We havent tried this yet as have been very busy and don't want to get things so out of wack that we can't bale at all. Oh by the way we are baling mixed grases and some fields of clover. thanks steve

: We have moved the teeth all over the tine bar with no real results. an old mechanic in this area sugested the speed may be too slow however it is about 69-70 strokes per minute no load and the book recomends 65 also he sugested as a last resort to retard the tine bar timing by 2 links. Have You or your dad ever heard of this? We havent tried this yet as have been very busy and don't want to get things so out of wack that we can't bale at all. Oh by the way we are baling mixed grases and some fields of clover. thanks steve We had a 68 years ago that did the same thing. We found the best way to make bales with good shape was to keep the old girl stuffed to the max with hay, the more we fed her, the better the bale, to a point, of course.

: : We have moved the teeth all over the tine bar with no real results. an old mechanic in this area sugested the speed may be too slow however it is about 69-70 strokes per minute no load and the book recomends 65 also he sugested as a last resort to retard the tine bar timing by 2 links. Have You or your dad ever heard of this? We havent tried this yet as have been very busy and don't want to get things so out of wack that we can't bale at all. Oh by the way we are baling mixed grases and some fields of clover. thanks steve : We had a 68 years ago that did the same thing. We found the best way to make bales with good shape was to keep the old girl stuffed to the max with hay, the more we fed her, the better the bale, to a point, of course.
:::: Sorry it took so long to get back, they just finished 1st crop last week ariound here.
My dad said grasses are tough, but to make sure all the hay wedges are in on the left hand side. The front set of tines should be all the way forward and the second set as far back as you can reasonably place them. If this still fails, the short aluminum tines with the hooks on the end should be tried. Part nos. 66339 and 66340 if I remember correctly. These should be the numbers for the short tines, they make a longer set, but he thought they may be to long and hit the bottom of the tine bar chamber. He had not heard of the timing approach, but he said he had not worked on one of these in a lot of years. Let me know how it goes, and the best of luck.
FARMBOY

Steve: Check your hay dogs (2 pairs found in the top and the bottom of the bale chamber about at the end of the plunger travel. These do get rusted and froze up. One bolt takes one out, they are spring loaded so check the condition of the spring when you remove one. If they do not move readily into the bale chamber you'll have to loosen them up with WD 40, clean them up and oil them lightly and replace them. Also make sure the two tines are not bent or broken. The hay dogs are what retain the slug of material from the plunger stroke tightly in the chamber until the next stroke. A loose bale on one side generally indicates malfunctioning hay dogs on that side. Hope this helps.

: Steve: Check your hay dogs (2 pairs found in the top and the bottom of the bale chamber about at the end of the plunger travel. These do get rusted and froze up. One bolt takes one out, they are spring loaded so check the condition of the spring when you remove one. If they do not move readily into the bale chamber you'll have to loosen them up with WD 40, clean them up and oil them lightly and replace them. Also make sure the two tines are not bent or broken. The hay dogs are what retain the slug of material from the plunger stroke tightly in the chamber until the next stroke. A loose bale on one side generally indicates malfunctioning hay dogs on that side. Hope this helps.

Being at my day job I will have to wait until I get home to see if this was my problem. It sounds as though it was. I bought a PTO driven super 68 at the end of last year and used it for the first time this year. I was having the same problem. Insufficient material in the left side. After making all the adjustments that the owner's manual recommended I still had the same problem, (I don't recall the manual mentioning anything about the hay dogs though). An older farmer down the road told me that the bailer is probably a little rusty in the bailing chamber after sitting for 5 years and things will be okay after using it a while. Sure enough it started making good bales after 180 bad ones. One more thing my windrows were all uniform. After cleaning the baler greasing and checking all adjustments before use it was pretty frustrating not to get good bales.

: Steve: Check your hay dogs (2 pairs found in the top and the bottom of the bale chamber about at the end of the plunger travel. These do get rusted and froze up. One bolt takes one out, they are spring loaded so check the condition of the spring when you remove one. If they do not move readily into the bale chamber you'll have to loosen them up with WD 40, clean them up and oil them lightly and replace them. Also make sure the two tines are not bent or broken. The hay dogs are what retain the slug of material from the plunger stroke tightly in the chamber until the next stroke. A loose bale on one side generally indicates malfunctioning hay dogs on that side. Hope this helps.

Being at my day job I will have to wait until I get home to see if this was my problem. It sounds as though it was. I bought a PTO driven super 68 at the end of last year and used it for the first time this year. I was having the same problem. Insufficient material in the left side. After making all the adjustments that the owner's manual recommended I still had the same problem, (I don't recall the manual mentioning anything about the hay dogs though). An older farmer down the road told me that the bailer is probably a little rusty in the bailing chamber after sitting for 5 years and things will be okay after using it a while. Sure enough it started making good bales after 180 bad ones. One more thing my windrows were all uniform.