Getting close to starting this hay project!
Have the rake and baler. 6' Tar River drum mower coming this week with hydraulic lift.
Working on the baler. Before doing anything running it by hand one knotter would tie almost every time and the other would fail ever time with the knot stuck in the billhook.
Bent the wiper arm quite a bit to get it to contact better, improved to intermittently tying right. Switched out the old sisal twine with just 9000/140 poly from TSC. Both knotters seem to be tying well now, have ran it by hand 8/8 knots so far.
Have greased all the zerks.
Put oil in the gear box, I could not figure out were the level plug was and could only find one of the two drain plugs. I ended up just opening the cover on the gear box, sucking all the old oil out with a fluid transfer pump, rinsing with diesel and sucking that up. Then filled with 75w140. The manual says 2.75 quart capacity, but the gear box is totally full with just over a quart? Doesn't make much sense, I put more oil into the fill plug to almost 2 quarts, hopefully I am not overfilled or underfilled(does it hurt to overfill?).
Replaced the broken pickup teeth. Ordered them from Sloan, best price on them I could find.
On the to do list still is to fill the rear gear box with grease.
Then run it on the tractor and feed some old straw into it to test it further before the first cutting.
Considering readjusting all the timings according to the manual, but I am a little reluctant to change things when it seems to be timed fine right now.
Anything else I should be checking, replacing, etc?
As said above, I will probably need a Tedder, but I think I will try it without for now and keep an eye out for a good deal on a Tedder.
Have the rake and baler. 6' Tar River drum mower coming this week with hydraulic lift.
Working on the baler. Before doing anything running it by hand one knotter would tie almost every time and the other would fail ever time with the knot stuck in the billhook.
Bent the wiper arm quite a bit to get it to contact better, improved to intermittently tying right. Switched out the old sisal twine with just 9000/140 poly from TSC. Both knotters seem to be tying well now, have ran it by hand 8/8 knots so far.
Have greased all the zerks.
Put oil in the gear box, I could not figure out were the level plug was and could only find one of the two drain plugs. I ended up just opening the cover on the gear box, sucking all the old oil out with a fluid transfer pump, rinsing with diesel and sucking that up. Then filled with 75w140. The manual says 2.75 quart capacity, but the gear box is totally full with just over a quart? Doesn't make much sense, I put more oil into the fill plug to almost 2 quarts, hopefully I am not overfilled or underfilled(does it hurt to overfill?).
Replaced the broken pickup teeth. Ordered them from Sloan, best price on them I could find.
On the to do list still is to fill the rear gear box with grease.
Then run it on the tractor and feed some old straw into it to test it further before the first cutting.
Considering readjusting all the timings according to the manual, but I am a little reluctant to change things when it seems to be timed fine right now.
Anything else I should be checking, replacing, etc?
As said above, I will probably need a Tedder, but I think I will try it without for now and keep an eye out for a good deal on a Tedder.