Baler questions

The lady with the horses where we cut grass asked what it would take to cut and bale it. I have a sickle mower. I can get a rake for a decent price. Saw this baler. Any thoughts? 3-4 acres of hay 3 times a year. Says clutch slips. What's involved with fixing? Thanks

If it where me I would run not walk away form it. Parts are hard to find and well the MF balers just are not as good as a New Holland or JD baler. I paid around that tor a good working older JD or NH baler

JD and NH around here are $1500+. I am just starting to look for one.

I?d do a little parts surfing 🏄‍♀️ and see what shows up on the Agco parts books

The dairy farm next door to mom and dad's farm where I grew up had 2 of them. One regular, one with a kicker. They seemed to be a good baler for them. Baled a lot of hay. Around here new holland and jd are well over 1000 for a good running unit. If you ask around your area there might be someone who could help get it going. Price seems right as long as it doesn't have a bunch of other issues.

There's this one.

And this one

All I can say is you must be a glutton for punishment wanting to bale 10 acres a year.

Nephew has a Massey baler like that...never misses. Clutch slipping involves tightening the springs on the power shaft to a specific length. If the owner says it ties pretty good, I'd chance it for 3-4 acres of hay. Roll it over by hand looking for bad spots in the bale chamber. All balers that age have a ton of hay put thru them.

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A MF 12 was the first baler that I wrenched on as a kid. It was nearly new but it had a major problem. The farmer that I worked for worked on it for awhile then told me that he and his kids were going to go milk and see if I could fix it. There was a timing diagram silk screened on the cover and within an hour I had it tying again. The old MFs are much better than old JDs and NHs because of the knotter design. Far and away the most common problems with both JDs and NHs are the tucker fingers and the twine wipers. MFs have neither. The clutch shouldn't be a big deal. At worst it would need a disc or two. I am pretty sure that the type that is on that baler you tighten the nuts to loosen it. Which you should do before every season to test it. Then you back off the nuts and the springs put the correct pressure on the discs.

Grandpa, from personal experience, an older ?good used? baler is a worn out piece of equipment, you could get very lucky if it were just the clutch but I wouldn?t expect much out of it. Down here where I?m at balers don?t give very good service for too many seasons due to so much sandy ground and fire ant mounds, and if one was ever used for peanut hay it really shortens the life span due to so much dirt. I say give it a try though, you may come out good on it....

John, we have been mowing the grass every 2 weeks last year and this summer so far. I mentioned that it could be baled and fed to the horses.......I wouldn't have to cut near as often

Love that movie!

I don't know anything about MAssey balers but a guy i know has one. He bales a good many bales with it each year with good results. The bales that come out of it are about as nice looking as they come too. Nice crisp corners and no banana bales. He is a very good baler mechanic so that might have something to do with it.

Hi Grandpa, about 40 years ago neighbor had a MF #10 or #12 baler and it was a good baler. He liked it better than the JD #14 that he traded for it.
My only concern would be replacement parts today but again you are only looking at 3 acres 3 times a year.
Neighbor actually ran it with a 135 MF Diesel. Another neighbor had an IH #46 baler and he ran it for many years with a Ford like yours.

Baled many a bale with a #12 Massy, good baler, made good square bales.
You can't feed it as fast as a NH but it made nicer bales.

Don't know what model that NH is but it's a little older than I'd want to mess with.

My brother had one of those Ford balers, messed with it all one season trying to get it to bale properly. Next season I told him to ether fix it or sell it, other wise I was going to stuff it full of hay and burn it to the ground.
He got it to working good enough to sell it!

Agreed. Clutch should be simple. I?ve seen your prowess and you could probably fabricate clutch discs if you needed to. Without knowing I would say clutch parts are still available. I learned to run a baler on a #3 Massey and later ran a #12 when it was just Pa and I. We had NH Stackliner so I could drive as hard as I wanted. The 3 speed on the 2-70 White was handy for keeping the plunger full. In the monotony of just tractor and baler I used to count the strokes between knotter trips. 18 to 20 in a bale. Later Pa bought a HN w/ a kicker and I didn?t feel I could push it as hard, but the NH would make a bale one spear at a time if it needed to. The MF made a good bale as long as it was full. The Stackliner needed tight bales to work right and both the #3 and #12 performed well. The old neighbor still has our old #3 and if I was smart I?d go see him. If that #12 was in the neighborhood for $300 it would be in my yard tomorrow.

The MF balers I've known of in my area were good balers,run don't walk away from the Ford we had one for awhile.I have an Oliver 62T I bought at auction over in the Valley older Mennonite
fellow had it.It'd been parked in his shed for over 10 years bales like a champ paid $200, as with all those old balers just don't crowd them and rake small windrows.That 77 Oliver
would be a perfect match for the MF.

Kevin;
Big differance in cutting grass with a brush cutter every 2 weeks and making good quality horse hay.

I just do not see how 3 acres of hay is going to pay for equipment; repairs; fertilizer; ect; ect; ect.

If they have a place to store it you would be better off doing it the old fashion way and put the hay up loose.

You put up 3 acres of loose hay,then I'll bet you'll be glad to spring for the $300 for the baler(LOL)

I agree with old.....been around a lot of balers

Ben

Exactly.
The reason I said he must be a glutton for punishment.
And we both know he will be real lucky to get threw one season with a $300 baler.
If he had a front loader I would suggest a sweep rather than a baler.

I just do not see 3 acres making a baler; rake; and cutter profitable.

The Massey will part out more than that if you cannot repair it. Those clutch parts are expensive, but I would jump on it were it close to home. New Hollands like that are awfully old but might do the job. Stay away from the Ford.

With balers there is a definite inverse correlation between price and dependability. I would not buy a baler for that little bit of hay. You?ll spend more time working on something like that than baling.

Also I believe I read in a previous post about how it was all weeds..... I guess you better get a sprayer and herbicide, but wait after spraying it, it?s thin in spots, better fertilize gonna need a fertilizer spreader, gotta get it off the ground now you need a hay wagon or two......

We had 2-12 balers, one with a thrower. My brother wrecked the one with the thrower when the pin popped out pulling it down the road. Then dad traded both for a 124, the next newer. Don't remember too much about the 12s, other than they were better than the 230 case we had before, which don't take much. The 124 was a hay eating machine! Had a thrower on it and would make bales so fast the thrower wouldn't get to full speed between bales. Awesome baler.

Sadly the horses ate all the grass in the pasture, so it's weeds. The other 3 acres is good grass.

If I lived near ya I'd let you use my 337 Deere baler I keep as a backup.


Consider taking on more acreage to justify getting a decent baler...then it snowballs from there,newer better mower,tedder,good rake,newer bigger tractors👍😎.

Paul

That is why one has to shop around. Plus this is not the time of year to be looking. One needs to look in the fall/winter when baler prices are down. By the way the best tractor you have to pull a baler IS THAT Oliver 77. I've pull my NH271 behind the Oliver and it is almost a pleasure with it with the live PTO and having enough weight that the baler does not rock you forward and back like it would your Ford 960

Grandpa, I just bought a MF 120 baler, and that clutch looks to be the same as yours. It had been sitting at a dealer's lot for a while, so I got a good deal on it, new tires and seemed to be low usage.
I found the clutch would not engage in either direction. Looking at the manual it has a sprag clutch, which if you're not familiar with it, there are a bunch of hourglass shaped bars that surround the input shaft, and they will allow the flywheel to spin when you shut off the tractor pto, and engage when you engage the tractor pto.
I found that there was a little corrosion in there from sitting outside. I cleaned it all up and it still slipped both directions, but then I noticed that the little sprag pieces are NOT the same on both sides. On side has more material on one side of the hourglass. The pieces can come out of the cage easily, and it was obvious that someone had taken the sprag clutch apart before from some nicks on the brass insert. A few of the sprags were in the wrong way. Once I got the pieces all in the right way, it worked perfectly.
You can still get new sprag assembly for around $350 from the dealer. A whole new clutch assembly is $450 from a dealer in the UK, but shipping is around $400 with import fees and such.
For $300 you almost could get your money back in scrap, but parting it out would most likely bring a profit. So IMHO it's not a bad deal. You can probably fix the sprag. The only other thing is the knotters, those are NOT cheap, IF you can find them.

Run! from the ford! They were good balers in their day,but now parts are not available.It was made by New Idea.

You seem to be able to fix things or get someone to help. I don?t think you could get hurt too bad for $300. The Massey baler we had worked pretty good. You got to start somewhere.

Me to

Offer him $200 and see what happens.

(quoted from post at 17:37:46 07/11/19) The lady with the horses where we cut grass asked what it would take to cut and bale it. I have a sickle mower. I can get a rake for a decent price. Saw this baler. Any thoughts? 3-4 acres of hay 3 times a year. Says clutch slips. What's involved with fixing? Thanks
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Fixing the slip clutch mite turn out to be as simple as shimming the plungerhead in it's guides and sharpening and/or adjusting the plungerhead "knife".

Well he already has everything except the baler.So if he gets 50 bales to the acre,at $4/bale he'll get $600 and once he has everything probably pick more spots to bale hay.

Some fifteen years ago I got my MF 224 with thrower because my wife didn't want to drive any more. I had been baling with a JD 336 for maybe ten years. I had one place where the ground was shaded by a big willow tree, and grass grew 6 feet tall there, Every year I would shift down to 1st gear out of 18 to approach it slowly, but then the 336 would get ahold of some of the tall grass and suck it in and bang would go the shear bolt. Ever since I got the MF, I would approach very slowly and the MF baler would suck in so much that the intake couldn't have held one more stem. The MF would shudder, and make the tractor shudder, but it would keep going. One time at another field where there were two trees out in the middle, I was watching behind me to my left as I came around one tree, and got a little off course. The baler got into two double windrows at once! I hit the clutch and the MF just kept sucking all that hay in and put a second bale right on top of the previous one. Neither JD nor NH could hold a candle to the MFs of the time!!

Forget the baler,,show grandma this,,tell her to toughen up!
dont need no stinkin baler lol

You need to think a bit different than others are saying. She has the ground and feed for her horses but it is not where she can get it fed to the horses that need it. So where they are thinking amount and quality of hay only comes into factoring number of bales produced, quality means nothing to you. Do you think she is stable enough that the work would be there for not only the rest of this year but for several years in the future. If you can be assured of having the work if you get the extra machinery you can afford to put more money out now than if it might not be there next year. Some are assuming you would be getting the hay that you don't need but that she does need. Value of hay does not figure into this. And neither does if it needs fertilizer, Only thing on the fertilizer would be if she asked you to apply it and you would have to by an applicator, then if it would get enough use to pencile out same as your post hole digger. Your labor and tractor time would be close to equal the mowing time for raking or fertilizer application, baling would take about double the time. You say you have found an affordable rake so you must be thinking the job could last for a few years, no rake could be affordable for just this year. Now on the baler it would come down to condition and could you do the repairs? Then are the parts needed avaible? You would be just trading tractor time from one job to a different one so cost to you would be same for that. So it comes down to the baler if you would get that one or a different one. You should already have the liability insurance for your other work, so no more cost there. I don't know if they would be taxing the baler or not, some states would others not. So could be a factor. Now she is paying property tax on the field she is getting no return on so geting a return off the grouund should want to help her decide to pay you more for the rest of the harvesting. Than if she was already getting a return off the ground instead of just costing money. So it is just down to condition of this or any other baler and can you make enough to cover the extra baler expence. And the ones pushing the newer higher capacity balers would have the bales being bigger to get that extra capacity so she might not be able to handle them to feed them so smaller bales the better. I don't have any ideas about yeld down there so just pulling these figures out of the air. If you get 50 bales per acre and charge $.50 per bale for just bailing that is $25 per acre income for one acre times 3 acres is $75 for one year for first cutting. Second cutting figure 40 bales $60 and third cutting 30 bales is $45 so for year that would be $180 dollars income less your cost of twine. Per year. So if you could be assured of work for 3 years you would have more income than cost of baler and twine and still have the machine. I don't know that particular baler to estimate what it would cost to keep going but if you would have to sell it for scrap you would not be out much if any depending on how much use you get out of it. And one of posters questioned on it being stored not your problem. Just get your normal hourly labor charge for getting it from field to storage, if she wants that. Same labor and tractor expence if just mowing or baling. So it is condition of baler and if short time or long time work. I myself quit making hay in 1980.

Kevin it does say best offer! If you get it just be careful. I gave a guy a ride last night with only one arm. PTO ripped his arm off . We had a Massey like that for a short time also had a few New Holland?s and a couple IH?s. All were pretty wore but we struggled on.

Leroy, I saw your disclaimer about prices in Grandpa's area but FWIW, around here the going price for custom haying by the bale is $6.00 on the ground. $6.25 on the wagon. If fertility is not good we switch to hourly pricing.

(quoted from post at 10:22:04 07/12/19) Forget the baler,,show grandma this,,tell her to toughen up!
dont need no stinkin baler lol

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f that is grandma and grand daughter, the team sure has me beat!!

I agree. Balers are just trouble. And she could let that gym membership expire too.

The mf 12 is a good baler in general.The clutch needs to be tighten up or replaced.I would stay away from the ford.I baled alot of hay with the mf balers.Like anything they all wear out.Good luck.

Thank you to everyone who added to this discussion. I've been wanting to do some hay anyway for a couple years. So this lady gives me a great reason to jump in. Lots of good advice given!

That $6.00 a bale would be $300 a ton just for baling hay worth perhapd at most $250 a ton so no body could afford to make hay at those figures. Baler like he is talking should only be making a 40# bale for what is wanted of them. Now if you were putting out hundred pound bales figure would be different. Figure I guessed at should have the baler in that price range paid for on the 3 acres including twine and any repairs in the 3 years time frame.

(quoted from post at 20:47:10 07/12/19) That $6.00 a bale would be $300 a ton just for baling hay worth perhapd at most $250 a ton so no body could afford to make hay at those figures. Baler like he is talking should only be making a 40# bale for what is wanted of them. Now if you were putting out hundred pound bales figure would be different. Figure I guessed at should have the baler in that price range paid for on the 3 acres including twine and any repairs in the 3 years time frame.

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Leroy, around here hay that is worth $300.00 a ton sells for $300.00 a ton.

And your figures still make the baleing cost alone at the $300 a ton so what does the farmer get for his hay, nothing at those figures but a dollar loss. I was just figuring cost to bale with older baler only as his tractor and labor cost is the same as if he was mowing it or even less as would be less tractor time for the baling versess the times he is mowing. You cannot pay the whole value of the hay just for baleing.

(quoted from post at 10:00:17 07/13/19) And your figures still make the baleing cost alone at the $300 a ton so what does the farmer get for his hay, nothing at those figures but a dollar loss. I was just figuring cost to bale with older baler only as his tractor and labor cost is the same as if he was mowing it or even less as would be less tractor time for the baling versess the times he is mowing. You cannot pay the whole value of the hay just for baleing.

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Ditto I can't imagine any of my customers that I bale hay for would be happy with $3 per bale hay baling cost. I only charge $2 now to cut/rake & sq bale.

(quoted from post at 08:19:49 07/13/19)

(quoted from post at 10:00:17 07/13/19) And your figures still make the baleing cost alone at the $300 a ton so what does the farmer get for his hay, nothing at those figures but a dollar loss. I was just figuring cost to bale with older baler only as his tractor and labor cost is the same as if he was mowing it or even less as would be less tractor time for the baling versess the times he is mowing. You cannot pay the whole value of the hay just for baleing.

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Ditto I can't imagine any of my customers that I bale hay for would be happy with $3 per bale hay baling cost. I only charge $2 now to cut/rake & sq bale.

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If they aren't happy to pay for the hay they can have me call my customers in to pick it up in the field then they pay me nothing except for me to lime it every three to four years. Then they can call the feed store and buy it from them for eight dollars a bale.

Location has a lot to do with hay prices, what you get $6 for we'd be lucky get $2.50 - $3, other areas may get $4-$5.