You're a great spokesperson for farmers, Wes. No matter how frustrated you get by the equipment and people you sometimes have to deal with, you always carry on and focus on the task at hand. You might cuss and fume, but you make a plan, try again, and get stuff done. Thank you for that attitude; it's a reminder to all of us to keep working hard, no matter what life throws at us.
I'm amazed with the miles you drive you don't have a tow bar on a service truck (or a trailer) behind your equipment so when you run into these types of problems your able to deal with them in the field. Pulling a service truck (like your 550) with a toolbox , welder/generator and cutting bottles and 60 gallon air compressor on a flat bed that sits at hip level. Everything but the tool box is attached to steel pallets, just strap the pallets down and voala. If you pull a truck you can bring flat tires in instead of getting nailed a service call from a tire shop, or get bearings/parts in the nearest parts shop.
It's a heart-breaker to see you just trying to get your work done only to be stymied by equipment not up to snuff. On the other hand, your resourcefulness and ingenuity is inspiring.
More bad luck, I am a NH supporter but ashamed what you experience, if I worked for NH and was in the position I would support you with spares, repairs, upgrades or what ever it takes to finish your season, that would buy miles for NH because there is nothing more valuable as after sales service, ignorant of a supplier will harm the business or go bankrupt, but support will make you flourish, I am pretty sure if NH provided field support for theire crap pick-up design, Wes should buy a new one if there was improvements made, NH dig there own grave, this message is to any product supplier, accept your failure in design and support while improving, NH I support you but I am ashamed
Sorry for your misfortune Wes, will keep you and your family in our prayers! It is apparent that design is flawed from the start, and I am surprised that NH hasn't been there with "bells on" to fix the problem! Keep the faith Wes, it will end well!!!
If you were running it hard, all kinds of shit would fly apart. A baler has alot of moving parts and they are all timed to work together. That pickup drive design looked like a cluster fuck the first time I saw it. That needs a gearbox, not a 15 foot mess of chain wrapped around 8 yes EIGHT fricking pullys. But I ain't seen a piece of equipment yet that someone couldn't tear up, it's to be expected, but this is beyond ridiculous. I know you need to get done but maybe an accident like clipping a bridge or another equipment fire is on order.
John Deere is very consistent with their quality. A lot of people don't believe this, but I have been around this stuff since the 70's. There is a reason why they are the only tractor company that hasn't gone under.
It is actually amazing that for the last two harvest seasons your videos have been of nothing but the pickup on the NH baler. I think that the NH dealer and factory rep should bring out a new pickup every time that you have these failures. You have been a good customer for the dealer and he owes it to you to take care of you. I am a JD man all the way so I hope their machine runs circles around the NH machine and just basically does the job that they say it will do. If they have any doubts then they shouldn't even bring their machine out.
Just do a ridiculous overbuild for that last gear, machine big hole in to it and put huge heavy duty bearing inside of it, maybe needlebearing would work better? Then make some support to the other side of the gear , maybe a pushbearing to hold the gear in its place
new plate with new shaft, mounted behind main plate, new sprocket with DUAL bearing side by side pressed into sprocket, all idler and tensioners on a big truck have a dual bearing, side by side arrangement...stops the wobble.
hi wes time for a rethink! try and replace the shaft make it longer and fit a double race bearing chain sprocket with a greaser to the centre . a blank sprocket is cheap to buy and a good machine shop will make shaft and sprocket all ready to weld in or even bolt on and carry a spare. it's a shame machines are built by accountants these days ?hope you get finished this season good luck
the growing trend here is to bale filed stubble out of the corn and soybean fields after regular harvest. I see lots of round bales. A few of the big square bales. Most of the equipment being used is Vermeer. I dont have an opinion as to what color equipment that you operate. I dont even know if Vermeer makes a square baler. They are into many different pieces of equipment from underground boring to trenchers to wood chippers to big grinder boxes for wood stumps or pallets or house demolition debris (big clumps go in wood chips come out via a rubber conveyor) to round balers so it wouldnt surprise me to find out that they make square ones too.
I really feel for you! I couldn't imagine going through that over and over again! All the best on getting the rest of your hay done. You would think that since you are so vocal about this that NH would at least help you out in some way. It truly is sad.
Just had a thought on this misdesigned spawn of hell. How about a sealed bearing ID matching the shaft, and OD matching the requirement? If it slips, it slips, and there are more than enough sprockets to keep the chain aligned. Add if the rollers were toward the outside edge, they wouldn't be taking the beating. An idea, anyway..
Whats up wes! A solution to your problem may be to extend the shaft out through the sprocket/bearing. Then weld a 90 degree angle iron from that extended shaft back towards the top of pick up reals frame. This may take some of the shear pressure on the inside of your shaft and exert it elsewhere. You may have to weld on triangle section for extra pulling force onto the back of the angle. Sorry if this makes no sense! I could send you a drawing?
i think a non roller bearing would be the ticket for that baler, your sprocket with a solid section and a brass or nylon bushing in the center. not much to fail then, and if it does just press in a new sleeve and run it! On a seperate note, hopefully the jd baler works out, seems like they have always stepped up for you! Best of luck Wes!
oh that stinks. I hate it when you fix something then have to go a long way to see how it works then it breaks and you have to come all the way home. the part where you are starting the torch mad made me think of a time when I was pissed and working on a combine and started cutting without cleaning some straw out. Got a little freaky there for a minute
drill a hole in the end of the shaft, thread it and put a thick washer to hold the gear on, All the gears on our peanut combine use that design A 1 inch shaft will support a 1/2 bolt
Can you make you a brass or Teflon bushing for it to run on? Just a thought I've done that on a few things of ours that's really old and parts are hard to come by. Uncle is a tool and die maker and he will normally help me machine something but used a lot of machined brass bushing they do wear out eventually but tougher than bearings in some cases. I hope it works out for you Wes keep your chin up and don't piss into the wind........
Honestly cant see how any other baler can out bale that one when it works. I say this winter you rebuild that pick up or make one from scratch and build it 10x heavier than it should be. Then it will be a 200k bale baler
The main cause of the problem with that pickup is the tensioner, it should be spring loaded. Every time one of the augers or the pickup takes a jolt it stretches the chain because there is no give anywhere. Watch out for 2016 models an I bet they change the tensioner.
Take the chain and put it on the other side of the sprocket under the one that broke, then take the broken one and relocate it to the left and down.. I think it would take a lot of stress off that top one.
Wes, Its hard to believe New Holland does not test their equipment better before its released for sale. The weakness of the pickup header should have been seen in testing. Wow
Hey Wes, New Holland balers are doing well here but I stick with Case balers, once a wheel from the bike got inside it, and cause almost no damage. And yes, it is pronounced Krone
I know you don't have the time or energy to screw with it But have ya thought of cutting the old shaft out and installing a bearing in the frame I forget the name Like a pillow block but it a spherical br Earing between two stamped plates So one in the frame Then make a Bracket to have one mounted out board of the sprocket Then get a standard blank sprocket of the right pitch Key it to a straight shaft and put it between the two bearings Two bearing have to be better than 1 And it gets rid of the little shaft bending Oh and hello from a farm in western australia We're in the process of shearing 27 000 sheep
It's to bad about New Holland they used to be considered one of the best hay equipment manufacturers around. To bad the engineers didn't update the pickup with a service bulletin or completely revamp the whole thing
Well good luck with the 2 demo that your doing can't wait to see the video. I was look at MF video it has 2 chains on the pickup. The JD video didn't show how the pickup was run. but I'm sure you will show it...
my suggestion, and im no genius, remove the sprocket, shaft bearing etc, for the trouble one, and also the one below it, put some thick steel as a backing plate, and then get a much bigger sprocket, bearing and shaft, and put a new hole between where those 2 sprockets were, and the chain passage would be the same, but you would have a much bigger bearing to take the extra strain, just a thought
just thinking .... could it be that that axle where the sprocket fixes too is bent toward the inside , that would put constant pressure on the bearing wanting to trow itself off the said axle maibe you can check that with a square or actually bend it to the other side forceng the bearing against the back
Hi Wes. Did you have test new Krone baler yet? When they want to bring you this equp.? sorry for my language i dont know english well. You doing good job on RU-vid.
It Kinda looks to me that the fix for that mess is a gear with a lot bigger bearing in the middle and a bigger shaft ,or sleeve the existing one to mount it and match the bigger bearing inside diameter if needed , then maybe retain the gear to the shaft with a big washer and bolt or nut if a custom shafts made instead of the snap ring which currently mangles up or pops off under strain, all the idlers on my 688 are bolted or held with a nut. looks like you cant use a bigger gear full stop as there is no clearance for it unless a guy murders that nice sleek looking guard and back plate . Thats whats wrong the bearings to small for the strain, the fix might not be easy I can't see exactly how to make it work sitting here sadly. I do think it might be machine shop work as the gear/bearing size might not be available off the shelf, the new shaft might have to be custom made and welded in to if whats existing can't be modified easily with a sleeve and drill for the bolt.
+super6954 And what about the other issues he's had with it? Bending backplate, snapped chains, worn sprockets, disintegrated clutch, constant retensioning... Possibly some other things not shown so far... The whole design is flawed from the very start. You can't fix it by changing just one component.
+Cadde Yes the whole design is a problem, but Wes has been working to improve the issues he's had this far. Should he be doing it no( thats NH's problem) but that's the fun of farming and being mechanically inclined. I farm and run my own repair shop to. Wouldn't be the first time I've done my own updates or improvements to a machine, to get it to work right or better. I got frustrations worse than Wes has here with a manure spreader drive I'm working on today, And a government spread cut off date looming fast to be finished spreading by!. Like wes the replacement machine cost is huge and I don't have the money laying around to replace it right now either, I got to get it right myself.
Could that pickup be fixed by changing the chain routing and using 2 shorter chains to do the same as the 1 long ass junk chain? And is there enough room in the chain case to use 2 chains and route it using 2 chains? Or have drives on both sides of the pickup?
i have been in the industry both as a tradesman and supervisor, I never seen something so poorly engineered. It needs double sprockets and chains with roller bearings sides with an outer plate for support.
A Freeman should be worth a try. They are solid with no plastic, heavy duty, and they can last up to ten years. So,e of the ones in California have a good 100,000 bales on them.
Are the top two sprokets on the right just idlers? if so can you just shorten the chain and do without the top right one that failed? seems to me you could get rid of the top two on the right altogether.
I thought the wood idea was pretty good. I did predict it splitting and then saw in the video that it did. If you were going to use wood for the bearing Lignum Vitae aka Ironwood I think might work: This "Wood So Bad-Ass, It's Used to Make Shaft Bearings for Nuclear Submarines"; There's even a place in Virginia that specializes in making these bearings.
seems like you need a service truck or trailer to follow you to the fields that are far away complete with torch welder and many various parts!!! and dont forget spare steel for extra rigging!!! i feel that way trying to farm 8 acres!!! lol
@ 0:50 Exactly how I feel about New Hollands today.... from when we purchased our first New Holland tractor in 1998 to our last in 2008, they have gotten worse and worse (excluding the combine). So, now I have went back to what we used to operate all the time: Massey/Allis... and I'm glad I did so far... My point is, go back to your roots.... did you exclusively use JD in the past?
What have you got to lose? I'm really not a know it all but I think the idler is too small. Bigger would slow it down save the bearing. Cut the framework and add to it. I did this on a chopper and it worked.
That peace of oak or hickory was a good idea, just not big enough to hold the stress.Good try though. Better get finished up you are running out of time. Its snowing here in Pa this morning.
You should try and get a piece of nylon fused to a piece of metal that will be attached to your baler the nylon should be made so that the chain will straddle the nylon with the roller on the chain
After watching you struggle with this pickup for a good while, Wes , I've begun to think you CAN and SHOULD re build this aggravater over winter. You've got a good mechanical head on you, reasonable tools, and probably time this Winter to do it correctly. It would burn New Holland's ass to see you singlehandedly do something their "engineers"can't. You've also got several good minds that watch you do your thing. Just weed out the Fourth grade sh-t that gets posted, glean the good info, and I think it could come to fruition. Good Luck getting the hay that's down done. HTH 57 PS Gotta go put my JD 30 to bed. Beans too damn weedy to film and post or I would have. The shit criticism I'd get subjected to on here isn't worth my time.
Was that your son in the opening clip in the field? And did his sweatshirt say DelMar? My grandma lives in Delaware so thats why I'm wondering. "Demo" a JD baler from the dealer for as long as you can, but really ur just borrowing it.
Nice vid bud I feel your pain! Try a Heston! out and see what ya think! over 56 thousand bales on one here and nuttin but grease N twine realoads! here! and you are very correct! NEW HOLLAND! Baylor is top shelf!! but there pickups are junk!
definitely try out deere stuff. new holland is way to light built for your crop. i dairy farm and almost always have pure alfalfa. new holland balers, tractors and choppers are perfect for me. but for what ur crop os. definitely try a jd or a krone baler. and thanks for all the speedrower 240 vids. those vids had a huge part on my decision to buy a massey windrower over a nh. thx +onelonleyfarmer
+Seth Helminiak the massey is good too. but i have a bad feeling about it in your extremely heavy crops. i agree your not hard on ur equipment.u just have a heavy crop and the nh just cant do it.
Massey ferguson = fendt fendt = expensive as fuck Fendt recently also started making hay rakes and stuff and that will be a fella (I believe) with fendt price tag haha But dont forget with a higher price you get higher quality parts.
Don't you have any decent machine shops up that way?? My brother used to have a machine shop and did onsite work in southern NJ. Farmers were his best customers.... I guess asparagus was really hard on the equipment???
I bo't a car that went thro the alternator belt every 6 mos. When I finally looked at it from straight over top I discovered they weren't correctly aligned. A couple of big washers did the trick.
stand back and look at it!. you don't even need that idler. put the chain around the drive sprockets the other side. you could lose two feet of chain and two idlers easy.
Skip the upper left idler and the upper right idler, and run the chain a crossed the top of the large drive sprocket instead of under? Dose that math work or not?
