Nasher B440
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Nasher B440
Evening chaps.
Getting my B440 International Bailer fired up. Never used it, acquired it 2 year since. Powered it up tonight but the needles keep coming and the packer stop comes up shearing the shear bolt (as it should). The drive shaft across the top of the knotters and timing gear appears to have a clutch at the drive end, opposite end to the brake (worn out). I have also worked out that there are some expander collars on the shaft.
I think that the clutch is stuck. Any experience out there with this machine. Have seen the PDF file that I will down load but short cuts first. ? ?
Getting my B440 International Bailer fired up. Never used it, acquired it 2 year since. Powered it up tonight but the needles keep coming and the packer stop comes up shearing the shear bolt (as it should). The drive shaft across the top of the knotters and timing gear appears to have a clutch at the drive end, opposite end to the brake (worn out). I have also worked out that there are some expander collars on the shaft.
I think that the clutch is stuck. Any experience out there with this machine. Have seen the PDF file that I will down load but short cuts first. ? ?
Re: Nasher B440
O.K. Let's get a bit of terminology right here before we start or we will get in a muddle. That isn't a "packer" stop that comes up in the chamber. That's the needle dog and as you say, it is supposed to happen. So all is well there. There is no clutch at the drive end of the knotter shaft. But there is a small spring in there that keeps a pawl in place. If that spring is broken then the knotters will be tripped and the needles will come in on every stroke. But there are other things that will cause it to happen.
To get at that spring you need to slide the knotter frames along the knotter shaft towards the needle brake by undoing the expander collars.
Do not operate your baler with worn out knotter brake pads on the knotter shaft. They are there for a purpose and should be adjusted correctly. Depending on the age of your baler there may be some needle brakes on your baler. Have a look down at the needles and if they are there you will see them at both ends of the needle frame. They have a correct adjustment as well. That is determined by how much they deflect when the needles are in the home position and the tying position. You adjust them by putting washers under the pads.
This whole braking business is quite critical. The needles need to be kept out of the chamber until they are required. The rear needle brakes take care of this. Then when they are in the tying position they need to be kept there momentarily and the front brakes take care of this. The same with the knotters. They need to be kept stationery until they are in the tying cycle and when they are doing that they must be stopped from moving around too much which they would do because of the play in the gears if the brakes weren't there.
To get at that spring you need to slide the knotter frames along the knotter shaft towards the needle brake by undoing the expander collars.
Do not operate your baler with worn out knotter brake pads on the knotter shaft. They are there for a purpose and should be adjusted correctly. Depending on the age of your baler there may be some needle brakes on your baler. Have a look down at the needles and if they are there you will see them at both ends of the needle frame. They have a correct adjustment as well. That is determined by how much they deflect when the needles are in the home position and the tying position. You adjust them by putting washers under the pads.
This whole braking business is quite critical. The needles need to be kept out of the chamber until they are required. The rear needle brakes take care of this. Then when they are in the tying position they need to be kept there momentarily and the front brakes take care of this. The same with the knotters. They need to be kept stationery until they are in the tying cycle and when they are doing that they must be stopped from moving around too much which they would do because of the play in the gears if the brakes weren't there.
RE: Re: Nasher B440
Sorry about "Packer", Sir... thats my Jack Allen dustbin wagon technology coming in.
Do the expander collars turn , then the whole shaft is shortend?
Is that spring and pawl inside what appears to be a drum ? I can see a gap just broader than a screw driver tip.
By shortening the collars, does the whole knotter lift out.?
Will definately be getting a set of brake pads for it for the disc as the pad tensioners are screwed right up. I cannot see any brake pads around the needles, will study that closer tomorrow.
Thankyou, will be back.

Do the expander collars turn , then the whole shaft is shortend?
Is that spring and pawl inside what appears to be a drum ? I can see a gap just broader than a screw driver tip.
By shortening the collars, does the whole knotter lift out.?
Will definately be getting a set of brake pads for it for the disc as the pad tensioners are screwed right up. I cannot see any brake pads around the needles, will study that closer tomorrow.
Thankyou, will be back.

No need to apologise but when I read something about "packer" I thought that you were referring to something else.
Yes, the expanding collars are free to turn on the shaft. On previous IH balers if you wanted to get at the drive end of the knotters you had to strip the entire shaft out from the knotter brake end. But I have done that in the field. You will have to undo each knotter assembly where they are held on to the breastplate (right at the front of the knotter) 5/8" AF I think it is. Then they will slide along the shaft. You might get away with just undoing the knotter nearest the drive end and pushing it along a bit after undoing the expanding collar. It is a long time since I had to do one. Try that first and see if you can get at the little spring. It's only a weak thing but if it's broken it will cause this problem.
The spring and pawl are inside a cam. If you trip the knotters and turn the flywheel by hand you will see more of it during the tying cycle. In your case, if the spring has broken then you won't need to trip the knotter. The spring gets rusty and then it breaks.
Another thing that will cause this is if the trip mechanism isn't correctly adjusted. This is the starwheel arrangement on top of the chamber behind the knotters. This actuates the lever that goes back to the cam that I mentioned and if it's out of adjustment, or if the material between the two "drive" flanges has broken up this will cause the same problem. There is a disc of a special type of material between the two flanges but I have got away with using a piece of old type ribbed hosepipe in here when I was very busy.
Yes, the expanding collars are free to turn on the shaft. On previous IH balers if you wanted to get at the drive end of the knotters you had to strip the entire shaft out from the knotter brake end. But I have done that in the field. You will have to undo each knotter assembly where they are held on to the breastplate (right at the front of the knotter) 5/8" AF I think it is. Then they will slide along the shaft. You might get away with just undoing the knotter nearest the drive end and pushing it along a bit after undoing the expanding collar. It is a long time since I had to do one. Try that first and see if you can get at the little spring. It's only a weak thing but if it's broken it will cause this problem.
The spring and pawl are inside a cam. If you trip the knotters and turn the flywheel by hand you will see more of it during the tying cycle. In your case, if the spring has broken then you won't need to trip the knotter. The spring gets rusty and then it breaks.
Another thing that will cause this is if the trip mechanism isn't correctly adjusted. This is the starwheel arrangement on top of the chamber behind the knotters. This actuates the lever that goes back to the cam that I mentioned and if it's out of adjustment, or if the material between the two "drive" flanges has broken up this will cause the same problem. There is a disc of a special type of material between the two flanges but I have got away with using a piece of old type ribbed hosepipe in here when I was very busy.
Had lots of IH balers and could always make them tie. If I had a baler that missed more than about 3 or 4 per thousand I wanted to know why. I always had more trouble with sledges than I did with the balers.
The early B47s wouldn't tie with poly unless you had the modification. And the later balers with the moving knife knotter were better than the fixed knife. The problem with the fixed knife was that it had to be set spot on. And the needles had to be set so that they laid the twine correctly in the retainers or the retainers wouldn't draw the twine across the knife correctly.
Getting IH knotters to tie was all about thinking what was going on. And there are quite a few critical adjustments. Twine tension in the box, needle deflection against the gauging surface of the knotter frame, needle brakes, knotter brakes, retainers correctly shimmed up, etc. etc. And when you do get a miss have a look at the twine. Is there a simple knot ? If so is it on the needle end or the end that was retained in the knotters from the last bale.
Even the bevelled piece of wood on top of the ram needs to be there or the knotters will play up, particularly in straw (that had me foxed for a day or two until an IH man told me about it)
But how many people religously clean their balers out and oil all shiny parts ? If that pickup and auger are shiny then the crop will fly into the chamber. And it is much easier on the baler and tractor if the chamber is kept nice and shiny. A lot of people never even bother to clean the chambers out at the end of the season. They deserve all they get.
The early B47s wouldn't tie with poly unless you had the modification. And the later balers with the moving knife knotter were better than the fixed knife. The problem with the fixed knife was that it had to be set spot on. And the needles had to be set so that they laid the twine correctly in the retainers or the retainers wouldn't draw the twine across the knife correctly.
Getting IH knotters to tie was all about thinking what was going on. And there are quite a few critical adjustments. Twine tension in the box, needle deflection against the gauging surface of the knotter frame, needle brakes, knotter brakes, retainers correctly shimmed up, etc. etc. And when you do get a miss have a look at the twine. Is there a simple knot ? If so is it on the needle end or the end that was retained in the knotters from the last bale.
Even the bevelled piece of wood on top of the ram needs to be there or the knotters will play up, particularly in straw (that had me foxed for a day or two until an IH man told me about it)
But how many people religously clean their balers out and oil all shiny parts ? If that pickup and auger are shiny then the crop will fly into the chamber. And it is much easier on the baler and tractor if the chamber is kept nice and shiny. A lot of people never even bother to clean the chambers out at the end of the season. They deserve all they get.
- cropfaster
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:28 pm
- Location: Leicestershire
Hi, I have three IH440's. sometimes have two working along side each other in the field when doing straw.
One year one of them was chucking out every fourth bale with a busted string. An old boy who knew balers ( Davie Shiels if any of you know him ) said one needle was too high. I pulled it down a spot and off it went. The following day it did 1300 bales without a bust! The electric fan on the back means I dont even have to clean the knotter box every 500 bales, watch the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS9pa7lN ... ure=relmfu
One year one of them was chucking out every fourth bale with a busted string. An old boy who knew balers ( Davie Shiels if any of you know him ) said one needle was too high. I pulled it down a spot and off it went. The following day it did 1300 bales without a bust! The electric fan on the back means I dont even have to clean the knotter box every 500 bales, watch the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS9pa7lN ... ure=relmfu
Interesting video CF. Some straw doesn't feed very well and that isn't, it's fluffing up a bit in front of the reel. IMHO the baler needs a bit more crop going through it, you can hear the ram "rattling" at the end of it's compression stroke.cropfaster wrote:Hi, I have three IH440's. sometimes have two working along side each other in the field when doing straw.
One year one of them was chucking out every fourth bale with a busted string. An old boy who knew balers ( Davie Shiels if any of you know him ) said one needle was too high. I pulled it down a spot and off it went. The following day it did 1300 bales without a bust! The electric fan on the back means I dont even have to clean the knotter box every 500 bales, watch the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS9pa7lN ... ure=relmfu
The needle height is another critical adjustment. Take the needle shear bolt out and swing the needles up until they are at the end of their tying cycle. I forget what the measurements are but they must protrude beyond the retainers by x inches and be above the retainers by y inches (y is only part of an inch) And they must have been deflected against the knotter frame on their way up to this point, this ensures that they are laying the twine across the retainer gap correctly.
Interesting idea about your electric fan. I always made people work IH balers with the hinged tin guard that is on top of the knotters in the upright position. I found that the action of the ram pushes the crap out of the way. Probably illegal I know. Early IH balers didn't have that guard anyway. The first baler I ever owned was an MF 701 and they had a belt driven fan and if the belt broke you wouldn't do many bales before that thing would start playing up.
i been using a jd 257 past couple of years with auger feed, as scooby has mention use less untill its shined up nice again, going down the nh route this year wanted a 376 but settled on a 274 in the end,
also needle dog? thats a new one on me, ram stop is what ive always called them
also needle dog? thats a new one on me, ram stop is what ive always called them
db 990 selectamatic
case ih 1594 com ed
db 1390 gd90 loader
case ih 1594 com ed
db 1390 gd90 loader
- cropfaster
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:28 pm
- Location: Leicestershire
Hi, The video was filmed in 2010 and the straw was very short which is why it is rolling in front of the pickup. My mate Malk was baling and is not a farmer, it is better for him to bale slowly than have a blockage and be stopped for three minutes. Had I have been on it I may have tried to go up half a gear, but while he is baling I can get on with loading.
Yes, the system used washers to get the twine knife adjusted correctly. And as you sharpened the knife it went out of adjustment and so it had to be set up again. When the cutting edges became separate pieces that were held on by two grub screws that made life easier.cambs1594 wrote:ours was a fixed knife knotter, remember the vast amount of washers that were used as packing pieces between the knife and the knotter body. 1 observation i did make about the IH knotter, it relied on the moving bale to strip the knot off of the bill hook, which i thought was the worst idea ever, as the string is stretched to hell and back before it eventually pops off (or quite often in my case broke!) I went and watched a friend using his massey 20, every time it knotted there was a satisfying clock, and a stripper arm swung across and pulled the knot off of the bill hook, thus releasing the bale to travel on its mery way. Next day i went and bought one, then sent the IH as far away as i could sell it
Nothing wrong with the way the knot is stripped of the billhooks. If it's too tight then slacken off the cam spring. Usually any problem in this area was that the knot came off the billhooks too soon caused by not enough tension on the cam. That meant undoing the knotter bolt and swinging the knotter up. Then with a screwdriver prise the cam open, lodge it open with the billhook roller, and clean the crap out that was stopping the cam from putting the full tension on the roller.
cropfaster wrote:Hi, The video was filmed in 2010 and the straw was very short which is why it is rolling in front of the pickup. My mate Malk was baling and is not a farmer, it is better for him to bale slowly than have a blockage and be stopped for three minutes. Had I have been on it I may have tried to go up half a gear, but while he is baling I can get on with loading.
Very sensible. Like putting my Wife on a baler while I got on with rowing up. (well I'm not going to trust her with that am I ?) I once lost the plot when I arrived at one customer's place to find that he had put "the silly Son" on the acrobat to row up. I never even bothered to unpack the sledge, just turned round and went straight to the next place. When you have 5 places to go to in a day there's no time for messing about.

I must have been very lucky. Never had a duff IH baler and as some of you will know one of my 47s did 198,000 bales. I even had to have the crownwheel out of the gearbox on that one and have it turned so that the ram TDC & BDC were in different places.
But I didn't buy that 'orrible Vicon load of rubbish. There were only really two balers in contention, IH & NH and while NH were a good baler when new there was too much to go wrong with them, especially in the delivery arrangement.
But although I never used one I have heard good reports about Claas balers but I strongly suspect there is nothing to touch a Welger nowadays. I needed an extra baler and hired an AP12 (I think it was) 45 years ago and that was a fair machine in those days. Interesting video here showing how to pack a baler, and remember this baler was available all those years ago. The Welgers of those days had an interesting cross conveyor of a flat belt with tines on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrXM7JEk_7U
But I didn't buy that 'orrible Vicon load of rubbish. There were only really two balers in contention, IH & NH and while NH were a good baler when new there was too much to go wrong with them, especially in the delivery arrangement.
But although I never used one I have heard good reports about Claas balers but I strongly suspect there is nothing to touch a Welger nowadays. I needed an extra baler and hired an AP12 (I think it was) 45 years ago and that was a fair machine in those days. Interesting video here showing how to pack a baler, and remember this baler was available all those years ago. The Welgers of those days had an interesting cross conveyor of a flat belt with tines on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrXM7JEk_7U
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