Lambing is nearly over just 2 more ewes to lamb and now we start thinking and preparing for Hay making.
One of the first and most complicated harvest implements we have is the baler a John Deere 342 you can see from the photo that it has been used but its not in bad condition for its age. It has done 3 seasons with us and who knows how many with is previous owner.
Anyway last year it started missing knots every now and then, it did not tie the string on the right hand side of the bale and when the bale was ejected from the baler it would burst! So we have to go back later and feed the hay into the baler with pitch forks, over a large field this is very time consuming.
So this year we thought it would be very good idea to get the baler serviced by a John Deere dealer, at the Holsworthy and Stratton show I had got a business card from Robert Cole agricultural engineers and I phoned their service dept and inquired about a service for the baler, I was told that servicing equipment out of season was much cheaper, so I booked an engineer! I was given a price guide of £80-£100 for the engineer to come out and just set the baler up. It would be more if any parts needed replacing, I explained several times that we had a very limited budget! so only do what is absolutely necessary.
The engineer turned up and quickly set about checking the baler we put 6 bales of very old hay which we broke up and I fed in with a pitch fork. The engineer fixed the knotter problem but said there were some bearings in the needle lift gear that really should be replaced before it did any damage to rest of the baler. So after about 3 hours he left and we were hopeful that it would not cost too much!
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The bearings that support the gear wheel item 7 on the drawing, there are 2 of them which are having to be replaced so the engineer has taken the wheel away to get the old bearing pressed out and new ones put in.
Drawing courtesy of JDparts a brilliant source of information on John Deere equipment old and new and if you register you can even see the price of the part and if its in stock before you order. |
Well we have had the bill in and it came to over £500 with VAT! Yes I did query it, but it was correct what with the mileage charge and labour it all adds up. Although a bit of a shock I think it was worth it because the Baler performed perfectly.
Others Implements to service
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Mower: I need to service the Drum Mower which involves a lot of cleaning and this year I will have to change the cutter knives. You can see in the photo opposite the wear on the left hand knife
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Tedder: Clean and grease check tines and springs and this year we have a much bigger Krone tedder which does a 18 foot sweep each time and also has a system for spreading the cut grass away from fence line which is operated from the tractor cab and it of course with such a large piece of equipment, has hydraulic folding so I don't have to get out the cab when going between fields! The big tedder also seems to spread the cut grass so much better and does not seem to tangle it like the old PZ Haybob did. This means it dries quicker and when we come to row it up I can travel quicker up and down rows with the rake. We still use the Haybob for rowing up, because I can "zip" 2 rows into one which is the largest width our baler can "swallow!" |
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Bale Sledge: Lot of welding required and bit of grease. I had to repair a corner so the gate would lock |
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Baler Carrier: Bit of welding and a lot of grease. Not used in the end because bale sledge went on strike! - This time it was due to diverter gate springs not being setup correctly - well I think that was it. Browns did send me a photocopy of the original manual which was very good of them.
