OMC haybine

OMC = Owatonna Manufacturing Co. from Owatonna, MN.   While their beginnings go way back to 1888, they have long since gone out of business and parts are difficult to find.


Fifteen years or so - long before I had a tractor - I was given an old OMC haybine by a guy down the road who had no further use for it.  He said it worked but needed new bearings.  I pulled it home with my pickup and parked it in the north pasture.  There it sat all these years.

Earlier this month, after I baled my hayfield. I decided to move the haybine to the corner of the north pasture to be more out of the way.  I also hooked up the PTO to see if it worked.  It did!!  I was a little surprised that it ran so well.  Maybe the bearings don't need to be replaced that soon.   I do need to get new tires as the sun all these years have not been kind to the haybine's tires.  And I need to grease it.  And test the hydraulic lift as the hose did not have a coupler that fit my tractor.

I'll probably keep the haybine and not take it to the scrap recycling yard as I had been thinking.  It doesn't hurt to have a backup machine.

Here is a 19 second video of the haybine in action: https://youtu.be/b0qUQ4YwrBQ