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baler belts |
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Longmeadow Farm
Silver Level Joined: 30 Jul 2011 Location: Eastern NY Points: 321 |
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Posted: 26 Sep 2023 at 8:52am |
My 20 year old JD baler belts are beginning to rip around the clipper laces on the outside belts. The baler has never seen rain or been outside at night and has baled about 12K round bales. The local JD dealer mechanic wants to repair the two belts, restoring them to original factory length. I'm not sure this is a good idea as all the belts have some "stretch" in them by now. Baler still makes a tight consistent bale. Wouldn't repairing them to current length be a better idea ? Thanks
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dp7000
Bronze Level Joined: 26 Sep 2021 Location: Winchester Kent Points: 138 |
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In my experience the most important thing is that all the belts are the same length.
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DanielW
Bronze Level Joined: 19 Sep 2022 Location: Ontario Points: 165 |
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Having them cut back to original length is pretty common, and a good idea. It definitely won't hurt.
Interestingly, baler belts go through a few different stages of 'stretch' in their life. For the first couple of years they'll actually shrink a little (unless stored with tension on them). Then they'll start to stretch over time. Yours are likely at this stage, where they're longer than the factory length. It's not going to hurt anything and only help to get them cut back to factory length and re-laced. The only thing that will cause trouble is if they're inconsistent lengths. You can actually go up to 4 or 5" under factory length and still be fine - the only thing it will affect is not being able to make quite as large a diameter. On our JD 435 the belts are now 4" under factory spec., so we can't go quite to 6' diameter. Doesn't matter for us as we never bale that large anyway. If yours are overlength now, I wouldn't want to have them re-laced to that extra-long length: They'll have to cut 1" or so off the ends to get good material to lace to, so to get to the current overlength they'd need to splice additional pieces into the belt. Some folks do that, but it's usually only done as an interim measure to fix a broken belt and get through a season. It tends to cause grief tracking them, and is harder to ensure they're all a consistent length.
Edited by DanielW - 26 Sep 2023 at 11:30am |
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DanielW
Bronze Level Joined: 19 Sep 2022 Location: Ontario Points: 165 |
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I should add: If they get too long/stretched, the baler can be more prone to plugging when starting a bale because the take-up roller won't have enough stroke to apply full tension right at the start, and thus the belts are more likely to slip a little when first entering the windrow. Another reason why it's a good idea to go back to factory length.
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Longmeadow Farm
Silver Level Joined: 30 Jul 2011 Location: Eastern NY Points: 321 |
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Thanks for the suggestions and the benefit of your experiences. My take away is that I should get all 6 belts resized to factory spec and repaired . it makes sense as my original thought to return to present length would necessitate 4 splices for the two outer belts, when I could get all resized to factory length with 2 more splices. Now to locate someone to trust to actually resize accurately for the 4 long belts and the 2 short ones. Thanks again.
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Trinity45
Orange Level Access Joined: 17 Mar 2014 Location: Kentucky Points: 1684 |
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We used to have our own lacing tool etc and always checked all belts to ensure they were the same length.
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DanielW
Bronze Level Joined: 19 Sep 2022 Location: Ontario Points: 165 |
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You definitely want someone that makes them a consistent length, but cutting belts and installing clipper lacing is pretty straight forward. I suspect your Deere dealership (or any other dealer) does it all the time, so they'd probably be as good as anywhere. Things to make sure of are that the belts are cut square, the trailing edge has tapered/chamfered corners, and the leading lace has the outer-most rings on both sides. I think with the 3-ply diamond pattern Deere belts you might have to skive off the top diamond cover, but I could be remembering that wrong. The Deere dealer would know. I always use the 'smart locks' to retain the wire on clipper lacing because I like the idea of tying the last few hooks together on either side. I've had good luck with them, but I have also heard others complain about them. Ultimately I don't think it really matters. As long as they're tracking ok, the regular method of just tucking the wire back under the hooks works fine. When you go to tuck the wire back under, sometimes there isn't enough room to get it under there. An old trick is to heat a nail red hot and jam it in there so it melts/vulcanizes a path for it.
Edited by DanielW - 27 Sep 2023 at 2:36pm |
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WF owner
Orange Level Joined: 12 May 2013 Location: Bombay NY Points: 4664 |
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Just curious, but how does the cost of resizing your present (twenty-year-old) belts compare to buying new belts?
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