Hay baling horror stories

[sidney411]

We only got our own hay equipment last year but I've already had a lot of problems, and learned a LOT!

Last night I was baling and smelled something burning and had flashbacks from last year. It ended up only being some spilled hydraulic fluid but I though I'd share my story from last year:

I was trying to finish up the field and it had gotten dark, hubby was raking with a tracter that had no lights but the moon was bright enough to be able to not run into anything. I had a flashlight in my tracter to look at the bale guages since the monitor is not lighted and the lights of the back of that tracter don't work either. Long story short - one of the bearing in the top part of the baler caught fire and I was at the far end of the field. The baler didn't have a fire extinguisher at the time, we bought one the next day when we went and got the parts to fix the baler.
I had no idea what to do, I've heard stories of people burning up their entire balers and tracters. I shut the baler off and slammed it in C4 and took off towards the house. I dumped the bale (which I later learned you shouldn't do) and started spraying it down with the water hose. Ended up having to replace the bearing and the whole metal piece around it that had melted also. It messed up the roller but I was able to grind in back into shape.

I'm sure others have had worse experiences that have been at this a lot longer so lets hear your stories so newbies like myself can learn.

 

[csutton]

Our last field of the last season we were baling, the vermeer we had had a bearing get hot and the hay started buring. It never really flared up but as I was raking my grandpa was baling and every time we passed, I would smell grass burning. After the second time we passed, when the bale door opened, I seen it glowing bright red and I took off running to him to get him to stop. Got both water jugs and put out the fire. That would have been a fun story to tell the insurance agent after he told him he was getting out of the business! (We baled hay for his insurance agent) My aunt's father in law had a baler burn completely to the ground in the middle of a hay field. He unpinned the baler and was just gonna let the hydrolic lines break but he ended up draggin the baler behind him. He ended up saving the tractor, but the baler was a total loss.

csutton