Need older tractor recommendations for round baling.

[5030]

What commercial carriers are for. Tractor house (if you buy through them) can arrange transportation to your door. Bought my last used unit through them and they arranged the transportation as well. Very seamless transaction.

 

[FarmerRancher]

Forget any open station tractor, especially with a disc bine because they can throw debris (sticks and such) forward while cutting. No disc bine manufacturer would recommend cutting with an open station tractor. What ever you get. expect to pay top buck for it because pre 4 (older tractors) are commanding premium prices today. 5x5's you need at the bare minimum 60 pto and a dis bine is power intensive as well. I'd be looking it the 80-100 pto bracket, cab tractor with working ac.

Good luck finding one.

Thanks for that. I hadn't really considered that part. I've never run a diskbine before either. All of my experience has been with swather/conditioners and small square balers.

 

[FarmerRancher]

What commercial carriers are for. Tractor house (if you buy through them) can arrange transportation to your door. Bought my last used unit through them and they arranged the transportation as well. Very seamless transaction.

I've always wondered about how much freight for something like that would add to the cost of the machine. I used to drive 18's, but have no idea how much they charged the customer in most cases.

 

[5030]

Thanks for that. I hadn't really considered that part. I've never run a diskbine before either. All of my experience has been with swather/conditioners and small square balers.

I's Discbine btw. The cutters rotate on discs under the machine much like little rotary mowers operate except the 'knives' are free swinging. I've never owned a swather, I have no need for one as a discbine will have conditioning rolls of flails / rubber rolls in line with the cutter bar assembly. My recommendation is chevron rubber roll conditioning versus flail conditioning, especially if you have any leaf plants (alfalfa) in the forage. Flails destroy the leaves and leave the stems.

 

[LouNY]

We prefer the flail conditioners on our mix of grasses and clover with some fields of mixed grasses and alfalfa.
I have not noticed a lot of leaf loose with the flails now if we have to ted it especially a second time that's when we start to see leaf loss.

 

[5030]

I have a tedder but I never use it. Sits in the barn just in case,

 

[Tx Jim]

I's Discbine btw. The cutters rotate on discs under the machine much like little rotary mowers operate except the 'knives' are free swinging.

Rotary mowers I've seen have "swinging blades(knives)" except for a very few old models

 

[Hay Dude]

If we’re talking old tractors, I’d get a 90’s Case-IH Maxxum.
They have decent cabs with AC and a legendary 5.9L Cummins that wont let you down. They also have power shifts making them easy to drive.
The Maxxums were great for round baling. A 5240 is a great Maxxum.

The Magnums were built for large square balers and have an 8.3L Cummins.
I have a Magnum 270.

 

[5030]

They have decent cabs with AC and a legendary 5.9L Cummins that wont let you down.

The 5.9 is a good engine so long as you take proper care of it and
so long as you keep the cooling system (radiator and intercooler) blown out. Dennis has one in the shop presently with the head off. The customer never bothered to keep up on radiator cleaning and he overheated it and took the head gasket out. So far it looks like just the head gasket as the deck isn't warped but not sure about the head. Typically as with everything else today, parts are hard to get.

Lots of corrosion in the water passages too. Obvious to me the customer was lax on coolant changes too.

I ain't paying the repair bill. Glad of that. The meter is running in overdrive. If the head has to go to the machine shop, it will have to come completely apart as well.

Just fixed the muffler for it. I high temperature brazed a large curved split in it (laid in a length of 0.030 steel wire in the split and filled it with brazing rod. I was going to TIG it but there is no way I could clean the underside of the cannister of all the carbon so TIG was out of the question.

BTW, the muffler cannister minus the cast elbow which fits between it and the turbo outlet was $800 bucks dealer price and that don't include the pyrometer stinger either.

 

[5030]

My farmer buddy down the road just took delivery of 2 new JD tracked ag tractors and they both have electronically controlled reversing cooling fans that supposedly blow the heat exchangers out regularly. Not a bad idea actually. Radiator chaff is the leading cause of overheating in any tractor.