[AT] more old balers

[John Hall]

Figured you had a 4cylinder, those were real brutes! I just put a 
muffler (finally after 20 years) on the Super 66--dang that thing is 
still loud!

Yeah the 4020 has plenty of power. We used to put up 15,000 bales of 
wheat and barley straw every June, took us about 3 weeks and we never 
worked on Sunday and normally not Saturday. We had a 3xx series New 
Holland built around 1980, my understanding is it was the largest 
machine they made in a standard size bale.  We could sometimes use 30 or 
more shear pins in a season. One year 5 driveshaft crosses got ripped 
out. Sounds like we were being hard on it, but not really-- it had to do 
with the weather and time constraint. We used 8 people to haul up and 
pack the straw, so the baler had to roll to stay in front of them. 
Likewise, 3 men were running right on its heels planting soybeans. So if 
it went too slow or broke down, 11 people were standing around. If the 
field was big enough the combine, baler and soybean planting crew were 
all there together. Generally things went pretty smooth unless we had 
frequent thunderstorms, then the wet straw played havoc. We couldn't 
wait days for it to dry, we would flip it with a rake once the top got 
dry so the bottom would dry. In years the straw crop was short we would 
run two combine widths together (32 feet). That baler actually replaced 
a 273 or something similar, it was just too small for our needs. If I 
knew back when we ceased "real" farming  ('91) what I know know, that 
baler would have been mine at the auction. No harder then I would have 
ever ran it it would have lasted me forever. We did run it sometimes 
with the 454 in hay if the 4020's weren't available and the crop was 
light. Twice the mass alone regarding the tractor helped with the 
vibration/shaking.


John Hall