Hay baler

[Sberry]

I reached in the bale chamber and fix all the damage, yes replaced the dogs and repair to proper installed height and square, new springs. Lots of filled drilled bolt holes, also cleaned and Imron the bale chute, rusty and sticky it was, replace any steel, stick my head in the chamber to weld. I wrote a deal here and my puter lose it, short version, ha

[Sberry]

There are lots of places where it appears that wear may be irrelevant, once a guy takes it apart its another matter, some bushings in the cross forks, etc. NH has good parts drawings on the internet. I might take a couple pics later, I make a little pad for the dogs to land on vs the factory edge, they were being pushed way down in the chamber.
My baler will never be used like it was back in the day but I want it turnkey, an overhaul should last me as long as I ever need it, a littlepaint wouldn't t hurt anything but I am going to skip it. I have all the internal work done, replaced all the roller guides, new steel, bought the stock and made the parts for a nickle on the dollar and have steel left. The knife was out 100 thousandths even with new bearings and steel, ha, will reduce that clearance by a factor of 10X, we spent part of the day fitting the plunger, got it in all snuggly, made some shims, for the knife and one top roller guide at the end of the stroke.
It looks like got about a grand in parts, bought the steel from the yard and trim an angle on thband sawaw, I think it was 3/4x1 1/4, turned out good, bought new dogs, the old could have been fixed but the holes were worn, it was a toss up but they were 20 a piece.

[Sberry]

Seems the more I try to put together the more I find to take apart, some little deflector had the pin almost worn thru and was loose and found another crack in part of the frame steel that would allow a little flex. Another piece of steel I decide to fix also that i had try to ignore as in significant, ha. With the plunger all re aligned and the knife gap narrowed there will certainly be way less applied stress each stroke and a whole lot less shuck that was beginning to hammer the machine apart in general.

I can see as a reman itimportantnt to really tear it apart first, clean and start from bottom up. I can see though now a guy could make several improvements to an operating machine and some quick fixes where rebuildinwasn'tnt an option, not everything would need to be as fussy as we are here but in the process the learning curve has went up.
When I first got it we bale 300 or so and miss 3 or 4, I said,,, I can even live with that and maybe I will fuss over it, well, developope a problem and nothing I can do to fix it so we start from the beginning, in the process I find where I think a little plate fell out and all of a sudden thdoesn'tsnt work, at the tididn'tdnt know where it was, what it did, etc, once I strip it out some problems become more obvious.
A guy could probably gain a lot in some cases by adjusting plunger play, make sure dogs are in range, adjust knife clearance. Maybe look for any guide steel obviously ripped out.

[Sberry]

As I mention still replacing fasteners, put mostly new in and at least loosen ones that are stuck and relate to service or adjustment. High on my list is eliminating seized bolts, having to cut or weld on this,,, and not to nuts about grinding on machine full of straw, its a pain and added step. Bought a bunch of new bolts right size/lengths. Give them all a drop of oil before install.

[Fireman]

Hey i figured i would ask how the hay baler has worked over the few years. I have been farming all my life and the post that said most of the time you use until it won't work is pretty true. It doesn't mean you don't pm it though, that we do. We have an old model 64 new holand that we use every year. I am having some problems with the bales not being square and have taken the bale chamber apart and replaced the wooden guides, bale holders and repaired rusted and worn metal. It helped but still is not real square. I use a kubota and a john deer "A" (two cylinder). We only have 50 or so acres to make now but from 1985 and back we made about 700 acres every year. Can't say i miss doing that much. Let me know how the baler turned out.

[Sberry]

I just bought the thing at an auction, the general condition appeared to be fair, there was a bale in it and I didn't really know what to evaluate at the time, could have lucked out the other way and found one where the general appearance was worse but the guides and rollers better. Its all a system but each thing has a function and half the time its,,, just,, does this look right or when re fitting some things become obvious, I am going to take manual now and read as it will make some sense to read whole thing vs look up a few specs.
Most of the adjustmentshadn'tt moved since factory or dealer set up, knowing what I know now would inspect a new baler, run it a season and tune it up.
This old one had really run its life and had turned the curve to really coming apart. shouldld have taken a few pics along the waespeciallyly with some of the generic quick fix/repair, the broken steel , filling worn bolt holes, I fixed some custom pins levers they had, just fix the worn hook with a gob of wire weld, had intended to fill and drill the holes but the oversize weld fix it all in one shot, about 5 minutes work as good as new, drilled a few things up to the next size, use larger pins. etc.

[Sberry]

Here is what I would think. If a guy is not intimately familiar with hay balers I would expect this job would take near a month to do right with a helper, couple weeks if you worked like slaves anyway. I spent some time staring and analyzing in there somewhere, it could be real easy to over look some real fundamentals

[Sberry]

Sometimes a guy has to wonder if its worth it. Before a guy buys any specific machine used he should go pour over dealers lots and get a grip on what he is looking at. For marginal or part time use a guy could probably buy one in good enough shape he could save a lot of labor and adjust the thing up, mine would need a little bit of paint to make its book value when I am finished but the utility will be there. Ideally I try to appreciate its value if I can along the way. Some you win, some break even. If a guy had to sell it would be nice to be able to reclaim some labor effort.

[stampeder]

Just wondering how you're coming with the baler.
I just finished baling our first cutting. It's usually really full of weeds and rye. Makes ok feed but what doesn't get used for feed will become bedding.
I had a timing problem with mine and it was breaking sheer bolts. I have a neighbour that makes his living fixing "green" balers. Sent it to him as I know he also does red ones as well. It took him 3 hours to finally get it timed. Turns out a have a bit of slack in the chain drive. It's got new chains, did that last year. So I've got to check the sprocket shafts for excess play. But it runs ok for now.
A couple of things I would suggest for your 273.
Get a good known grade five bolt (new one) and replace the sheer bolt in the flywheel. This is important and you want it to sheer if the plunger gets hung up.
Change the oil in the two gear boxes. Mine came out like road tar. Baler definitely runs better after this change.
Make sure the slip clutch is working properly.
Grease all the zerts you can find and all the ones you "can't find"

There is a set of squeeze plates on the rear that the baler twin goes through. These function as the string tensioning. Mine had so much wear that groove were cut in them and they lost their tensioning ability. They cost over $100 to replace so I MIG'd up the grooves, ground flat, painted and they work just fine now.

Next time you have the plunger out, check all the bearings on plunger. Mine had one that fell off when I pulled the plunger out. The mounting stud for it was really worn.

The 273 is a very desirable NH baler. If you don't mind me asking what did you pay for yours?

NH has been building balers for a long time and recently built their 200,000th baler.

The biggest safety tip around these things is "Turn off the tractor BEFORE you do anything with the baler".

Cheers.
Glenn

[SidecarFlip]

Lets see, you want 3000 bales per year from a piece of junk. Thats asking a lot. I'm in the custom forage (contract hay) business and we run upwards of 10,000 bales in small squares and 200 rounds in 4-4 and 4-5 net wrapped every year.

Making hay or straw is all about having good equipment and maintaining it from the start, not buying a piece at auction for next to nothing and expecting it to produce because it won't, or it won't consistently.

With a small square bailer, any bailer, there is a lot more to making a bale than the feed end and plunger. The knotter has to be in perfect sync with the plunger, the needles have to be in time and the knotter itself (twine discs, billhooks, cutter knives, actuator cams and all the gears have to be synchronized and in time, to tie the knot and produce a bale.

The older Hayliners had wood slides on the plunger that got worn out. Newer models now have roller bearings. The old models have exposed to the weather knotters, the ne models have enclosed knotters and the knotters are all gear driven, no chains and the actuation cams are simplified.

Even if it bales, you have to have reliable mowers and conditioners and rakes and windrowers prior to making that first bale and then there in Ms. Nature and the impending rain.....

Probably 90% of the contract jobs we do, are people that thought haying was easy with old, whipped out equipment and they never got a good bale. What they got was they relieved some farmer of his old, shot equipment that was unreliable and in the end, got to scrap it and we do the field instead.

Budget haying works maybe 50% of the time. The other 50% turns into mulch.

Do yourself a favor, contract it.

[Sberry]

Flip, I am not in the hay biz, this is part of another process I want to manage. I actually do have some fields cut by someone else.

[Roger]

Uncle had old baler with seats on each side of bale outlet chute. Workers setting there inserted wire and tied bales. I only saw it baling hay once that I can remember.