The world of Self propelled forage harvesters.

Rob5150 said:

Thanks for the info everyone, I’ll have a ring round and see what I can find.
Put the John Deere pick up on today and it made a hell of racket, was hoping to get it running into 30 acres of Italian In a few days time but looks like it’ll be contractor until I get a header sorted

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Pennine Ploughing said:

Your not chopping grass in Cumbria

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Rob5150 said:

Thanks for the info everyone, I’ll have a ring round and see what I can find.
Put the John Deere pick up on today and it made a hell of racket, was hoping to get it running into 30 acres of Italian In a few days time but looks like it’ll be contractor until I get a header sorted

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Rob5150 said:

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but I have just brought home my latest purchase;
View attachment 954073
It’s a 1905 Bought for the grand sum of 4K included grass and maize headers with a genuine 2100 engine hours.

Now I’m after some info from those more knowledgeable than myself, first off, there’s currently 6 knives in it, previous owner told me 6 for grass and 12 for maize, is this right? I don’t want too long a chop.

Secondly, when putting the extra knives in, do I simply line them up against the shear bar and tighten them up? Or is there a more precise way of doing it?

And lastly, does anyone know where I can find a proper newholland grass pick up for it? As the one it came with is a John Deere that’s been bodged to fit, it sits too far forward and previous owner said grass likes to build up between the auger and the feed rollers.
Also if anyone has any experience of these machines I’d appreciate any tips and tricks as I don’t know a whole lot about them if I’m honest..
TIA

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njneer said:

Best way fitting a whole set , is to wind shear bar back to its maximum , remembering to adjust the belly pan accordingly, and set up first blade to the shear bar then wind the sharpen stone down so it just skiffs and then adjust the first knife to the sharpen stone so it scuffs evenly both sides and the middle becausethe stone wears exactly evenly and you can be a bit out one side or the other with the shear bar.
Then set up the rest to the stone , setting to the stone also ensures you are getting all knifes to sharpen evenly right from the off not waiting for some to wear down .
Once all fitted , set up and sharpened evenly adjust the shear bar to the blades.
If adding knives adjust stone to the existing blades and set the new ones to that .
If it’s the “Big lever” right hand main clutch engagement and the main drive starts slipping there is an adjustment under an access panel on the main clutch on the right side a spring loaded pin you push in and turn the adjusting collar until the next notch until you get a good overcentre feeling in the lever.
Also on the “ big lever “ left hand feedroll engagement forward and reverse type there is no physical neutral position even though putting the lever half way would give a “ neutral” position it causes the drive plates of the clutch to slip and wear , not sure how the button type works but it was a common mistake operators made when waiting on trailers was to put in “ neutral “ to stop the header but it soon destroyed the plates.
Banjo bolts on the fuel lines on top of the tank used to collect dirt and rubber from hoses and cause loss of power , Radiator was prone to blocking .
Header mounting was prone to wear over time, clearance was not great and could bottom out in gates and jump off.
When drum and blower set up still one of the best blowing SP ever and can shift some grass in a day .$

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james ds said:

If it's for grass only one good big wagon will save you a lot of money . I'm contracting with wagons having changed from a class sp, I'd never go back.

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Martin Holden said:

Quite a few on this platform have already taken the leap. Hopefully some will be along to help give some first hand experience. Remember, nothing decent is cheap so if something seems cheap, there is a reason. Shame to see another trialed user lost to S/P’s as I spent most of my career with the JF brand. Times chnage as do fashions.

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mf7480 said:

I’ve said it before Martin, I think the JF’s place is 120-140hp, towing trailers. 3 men, cheap silaging.

It’s when the boundaries were pushed there was problems. We moved to a used self propelled 4 years ago to ‘test the water’, and made the jump to a brand new one this year. Silaging is a pretty straight forward task now, 150 acres is a very easy, stress free, short day. It’s nice to do a decent day without getting covered in grease and dirt keeping the harvester running and having to work all hours to get the job done.

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Rob5150 said:

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but I have just brought home my latest purchase;
View attachment 954073
It’s a 1905 Bought for the grand sum of 4K included grass and maize headers with a genuine 2100 engine hours.

Now I’m after some info from those more knowledgeable than myself, first off, there’s currently 6 knives in it, previous owner told me 6 for grass and 12 for maize, is this right? I don’t want too long a chop.

Secondly, when putting the extra knives in, do I simply line them up against the shear bar and tighten them up? Or is there a more precise way of doing it?

And lastly, does anyone know where I can find a proper newholland grass pick up for it? As the one it came with is a John Deere that’s been bodged to fit, it sits too far forward and previous owner said grass likes to build up between the auger and the feed rollers.
Also if anyone has any experience of these machines I’d appreciate any tips and tricks as I don’t know a whole lot about them if I’m honest..
TIA

Click to expand...

thesilentone said:

These were a good old bus in the day, hardy and good throughput.

However, the blower operates at 90 degrees to the crop flow, so fitting a maize processor is not easy, and the ones for that model were tiny and went like hell.

So, I would put in a full compliment of knives, and hope the maize is not to hard.

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