[Temond]

Have a Massey Ferguson 12 square baler that the stop dogs are not going down fast enough so shear pins are breaking. We emptied the bale chamber and manually turned over, tripped knotter clutch
and watched as needles came up engaged knotters and started back down. Plunger hits stop dog but if we hold it down and continue turning over the needles continue down and are out of the way before plunger reaches them. I can't find anyone reliable around here to work on it. A friend had someone work on his then he ended up fixing it himself. If anyone can help it would be most appreciated. Have hay down and no baler

 

[SpaceCadet12364]

You can get an op manual here. https://agmanuals.com/products/massey-ferguson-mf-12-baler

 

[Farmerjack41]

Would have to think it is out of time. No idea on a MF baler how they are timed. That manual listed above should address that setting. Lucky the shear pins are breaking.

 

[Temond]

Would have to think it is out of time. No idea on a MF baler how they are timed. That manual listed above should address that setting. Lucky the shear pins are breaking.

Actually we have the operators manual and pics are pretty lousy. We don't think it was out of time because if the stop dog is held out of the way everything manually turns over without any problems. We figured out how to adjust the stop dog so it comes down sooner (had to turn the adjustment nut in 11 turns, seemed excessive). Ran it through the cycle manually and it looked good. We're going to try baling this AM. Hopefully everything goes good. I just don't understand how it could get so far out of adjustment from one bale to the next. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Evons hubby]

Actually we have the operators manual and pics are pretty lousy. We don't think it was out of time because if the stop dog is held out of the way everything manually turns over without any problems. We figured out how to adjust the stop dog so it comes down sooner (had to turn the adjustment nut in 11 turns, seemed excessive). Ran it through the cycle manually and it looked good. We're going to try baling this AM. Hopefully everything goes good. I just don't understand how it could get so far out of adjustment from one bale to the next. Thanks for the suggestion.

It sounds to me like your timing chain jumped a tooth. That would account for your symptoms and that it happened all at once. You need to get it back in time and reset those stopdogs before you start snapping needles or breaking other expensive parts.

 

[Temond]

That would sound logical. However, over the years I have discovered that nothing that happens here is logical. Thus our nickname of the Funny Farm. After adjusting the stop dogs everything has been working good again. in fact, while trying to fix that problem we discovered that the twine fingers was worn and sloppy which was causing it to miss ties. We fixed that problem too, so it's actually working better than before. I guess it was all in God's plan, that's the only other logical explanation for the stop dogs jumping that far out of adjustment between one bale and the next. Thanks for your input.

 

[haypoint]

While the plunger is missing the needles, I'm guessing the engineers put in a bit more clearance. The needles need to be out of the way earlier in the cycle. That way, the dogs will be out of the ram's way. Not an uncommon baler timing issue.

 

[Temond]

I really don't know, but everything is working good now so I really hate to go and try to mess with the timing. I'm usually pretty good at following directions and being able to do things I've never done before, but the manual really seemed unclear on the whole timing process. It didn't say anything about how to change the timing of the needles. It only says how to time the hay packer forks. So to be honest I really don't know, but if it jumped far enough out of time to make the stop dogs about 1 inch to high it just seems like the packer forks or something would be messed up too. Any ideas on how to time the needles? I haven't been able to find anything on that. Thanks for the info.

 

[cpnkrunch]

Temond,

Are your knotters working OK? No misties? The needle timing is part of the knotter setup so if it doesn't mistie you are in the ballpark. Mine misties about once or twice every hundred bales or so. I think that's pretty good for a 1958 baler.
All that matters is that the needles bring up the twine from the spools and the twine gets into the twine disk notches. When the disks rotate, they grab the twine and the needles retract. That's it. Roll the knotting operation thru by hand without twine threaded and watch the action. The needles lift up thru each knotter frame and run by the billhooks. You can set the needle bolts while they are in this position because thats all that matters. Then run it thru a knotting operation under power at idle rpm. There will be some clacking as the tucker finger cam pulls the fingers over in preparation for a billhook twist. If the needles survive this test you are in business. Remember they were designed from mallable iron so they could be 'adjusted' in the field, literally. Whats really important is why they got hamered. Check the plunger stop. Sometime its floating action is bound up with old hay chaff or the springs are all rusted and shot. If the needle brake is not tight enough, they will bounce back into no-man's land and get clobbered. While you are watching in slow motion, check the twine cutter action to make sure the wiper arms scrape the billhooks. If they are worn, the completed knot won't come off the billhooks correctly and the knot can break or worse: be left on the hooks. The needles aren't sewing leather, just pulling the twine up thru the knotter frames. They don't punch thru anything.