Jerry/MT
Elite Member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2008
- Messages
- 3,135
- Location
- North Idaho-The Palouse
- Tractor
- New Holland TD95D, Ford 4610 & Kubota M4500
I starter baling our grass hay last Monday and after about 4 bales, I started getting indications from my Bale Command monitor that the tailgate was unlatched. I tried to manually wrap the bale in each case but it would not wrap. I ejected the unwrapped bale and low and behold I made another couple of bales and the tailgate unlatch warning occurred again and I had to dump an unwrapped bale. In both cases the tailgate had unlatched. I tried actuating the hydraulics as I was forming a bale and it seemed to work but every few bales I'd get an unlatch. I noticed that this was occurring when I was going up hill with about a 38 to 40 inch bale in the chamber. I concluded the right side tailgate cylinder was leaking internally and the additional force on the tailgate from going uphill was causing the latch to open thus screwing up the baling cycle and not allowing me to wrap. I concluded that the quickest way to get back baling was to buy a new cylinder and rebuild the old one at a later date to keep as a spare for surely the left cylinder would eventually go out also.
Boy was that the wrong decision! It turns out some genius at New Holland sourced the replacement cylinder with smaller ports! So what turned out to be an easy cylinder replacement - a couple of hour job (at the most) turned into a search for various adapters, the nearest of which was 50 miles away. Meanwhile the weather was threatening. Adding the adapters caused a clearance problem that I had to deal with by re-bending the supply line tubing. I also bought a new latch because the old one was worn. When I went to install that, there was an interference that would not allow the latch to full close and that resulted in the strange wear pattern on the latch. So I modified that part with a notch that allowed the latch to fully seat. I ordered the cylinder and latch on Wednesday, I got them on Thursday evening. (I'm very pleased with the parts delivery timeline) but it took me twelve hours from start to finish to get the baler in working shape including 6 hours of looking for adapters and picking them up due to the change in port size. It took another 3 hours to modify the latch. I would have been better off both time wise and financially to just by the rebuild kit for the cylinder and rebuild it and reinstall it.
Why does a manufacturer sell a factory "replacement part" for a piece of equipment and then if they modify it, and not supply the adapters or redesign it so that it can be installed properly. Why change something as critical as port size? As an engineer, I have a hard time understanding this kind of thinking! Did anybody in New Holland design engineering ever look at the latch mechanism to see if the "as designed" latch would actually fully latch? There is an interference between a piece of fixed structure and the movable latch the precludes the latch from fully closing! I looked at a parts baler and it had even more abnormal wear on the latch than mine did so this is a problem from the git go! I'll have to go back and modify the latch on the other side of our baler over the winter .
Gladly I can report that the baler works fine, the latch closes the way it should and I can finish baling - after the windrows dry a bit more from last nights rain.
Boy was that the wrong decision! It turns out some genius at New Holland sourced the replacement cylinder with smaller ports! So what turned out to be an easy cylinder replacement - a couple of hour job (at the most) turned into a search for various adapters, the nearest of which was 50 miles away. Meanwhile the weather was threatening. Adding the adapters caused a clearance problem that I had to deal with by re-bending the supply line tubing. I also bought a new latch because the old one was worn. When I went to install that, there was an interference that would not allow the latch to full close and that resulted in the strange wear pattern on the latch. So I modified that part with a notch that allowed the latch to fully seat. I ordered the cylinder and latch on Wednesday, I got them on Thursday evening. (I'm very pleased with the parts delivery timeline) but it took me twelve hours from start to finish to get the baler in working shape including 6 hours of looking for adapters and picking them up due to the change in port size. It took another 3 hours to modify the latch. I would have been better off both time wise and financially to just by the rebuild kit for the cylinder and rebuild it and reinstall it.
Why does a manufacturer sell a factory "replacement part" for a piece of equipment and then if they modify it, and not supply the adapters or redesign it so that it can be installed properly. Why change something as critical as port size? As an engineer, I have a hard time understanding this kind of thinking! Did anybody in New Holland design engineering ever look at the latch mechanism to see if the "as designed" latch would actually fully latch? There is an interference between a piece of fixed structure and the movable latch the precludes the latch from fully closing! I looked at a parts baler and it had even more abnormal wear on the latch than mine did so this is a problem from the git go! I'll have to go back and modify the latch on the other side of our baler over the winter .
Gladly I can report that the baler works fine, the latch closes the way it should and I can finish baling - after the windrows dry a bit more from last nights rain.
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