Today I learned what was making the odd noise I heard yesterday on my haybine. Initially when I start cutting hay today, no noise. After a little but the noise returned. Then it got louder. I kept going. On my 7th cut row today the haybine stopped cutting the hay. The 'wheel' still turned but the sickle bar stopped moving. The sickle bar is attached to the equipment that moves it back and forth, an 'arm'. I had never looked much at this area of equipment before, so I had to spend some time just to figure out what was missing. A round object with stuff that can compress inside it is attached to 'arm' with a bolt. I found the bolt and the round object were missing. I looked around where the breakdown occurred but found nothing.
I have a couple extra sickle bars. That is where I get more 'teeth' when one breaks. Earlier this morning, before starting to cut hay, I replaced a broken sickle 'tooth'. Initially I tried to use the round object from another sickle bar but it was looking that it may not fit correctly in the sickle bar on the haybine. So I replaced the entire sickle bar with yet another sickle bar I had. That meant transferring four sickle 'teeth' back to the original bar. I also found a bolt that would fit. Off to again cutting hay.
No more 'helicopter' sounds from my haybine. Three or so rows later the helicopter sounds were starting to return. I checked the bolt and found it had broken. Before losing the round object I went and got another bolt. Not ideal but it should work. I got one fourth of a row cut and then checked the bolt. The bolt's nut was gone. Because the 'arm' area had room above and no room below, I put the bolt in from the bottom (through a small hole in part of the bottom) so the bolt would be flush and the extra part of the bolt with the nut would be at top. To not lose the bolt without a nut where it would fall out the small hole in part of the bottom, I got another shorter bolt and put it in from the top. The bottom of the bolt doesn't come out the round object, and therefore no nut was added to the bolt. But the bolt should stay in place and did for the rest of the day.
The 'arm', the sickle bar, and the hole where the round object goes.
Back to cutting hay. Rows later part of the haybine's PTO driven bar that slides in and connects to bar that attaches to the tractor, felt off. On my hayfield corners I raise the haybine and stop the PTO moving it as I circle around and back to the hayfield. This way I don't have missed uncut grass on my corners. When I stopped the PTO and started to drive around part of the bar came off. Huh? I reconnected the bar and started to cut again. On the next corner the same thing happened. So I went and got some tools.
On the part that attaches to the tractor a 'button' pops in and out to hold the bar end to an indentation in the tractor's PTO drive. On the haybine's end a bolt should fix it to the indentation there. But it wasn't. There was a bolt with a nut against the top of the bolt. Why? I don't know. To not overtighten the bolt? I replaced the nut with a thinner nut and then tightened it to the haybine's end. It now holds and doesn't fall off.
Crazy breakdowns.
So I lost a few hours of cutting time today. And important hours. I started cutting hay at 12:30 pm. All afternoon I had no problems where the grass would lie on the haybine's bed and stop the sickle bar. I could even cut hay in the second slowest gear and not have to use the slowest. After 7:30 pm the grass laying down started to be a problem again. Why? We still had sunlight on the hayfield. After the shadows came across the hayfield from the setting sun, more 'lay down' problems and slower going. I quit tonight by 9:30 pm. I still almost an hour of light, but the hassle wasn't worth the effort.
It should take me less that 2 days to cut my field, not three. Barring any other wierd things happening tomorrow I should finally get my hayfield cut. I hope so!
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