I realize your probably tired of seeing old sickle mowers, but since it a damp cloudy winter day I thought you all might enjoy coming into the shop for todays exercise in percussive maintenance! That’s right we’re going to take a couple of BFH’s and beat the snot out of it!
Now this thing did a decent job last year over all but it did have its hiccups. Second cutting was the worst, the mower was dog tracking behind the tractor pretty bad and it kept plugging up. I got a heck of a workout getting on and off the tractor lifting the bar and clearing plugged grass!
I was pretty annoyed by the end of the day and figured it needed some maintenance and adjustment. Boy was I right!
First thing I see I one of the rock guards is missing its ledger plate. If you think of the cutting action like a bunch of scissors going back and forth a missing ledger is like only having half a pair of scissors. Luckily I have some spares laying around. Hopefully you can see the difference in this picture.
That was easy enough. I thought I’d check function next. You typically can turn the PTO shaft by hand and see everything moving, but not in this case, the knives are stuck in the bar!
Every two rock guards on the bar also have a wear plate and hold down that keeps the knives in proper orientation. I removed them and pulled the knife out.
Two wear plates were worn out but luckily I had some new ones on the shelf. A little time with a scrapper, and wire wheel, reassembled and now it moves freely! That two problems fixed.
Next let’s check the bar alignment. According to the manual the outside of the bar should be 1 3/4” to 2” forward of the inside of the bar. Yup you guessed it, it’s out of spec. This is important because the resistance of the grass will push the bar back to straight when mowing and it will move easier through the hay.
The bar moves back and forth on an eccentric and wouldn’t you know it’s rusted solid in its bore.
Off comes the bar and in come big fricking hammer number one!
it actually came loose fairly easily. And I was able to get it adjusted to 2”.
That’s problem number three taken care of. Let’s see if the knife timing is good. Nope! It’s not even close to being in register. Thinking scissors again being out of time is like trying to cut a piece of paper but your scissors only close halfway.
Got everything loose on the drag link and reached for the bigger BFH and started swinging for the fence!
It moved much easier that the other mower I worked on. This looks much better.
Given all the broken, worn out, and misaligned parts I am shocked this thing cut hay at all! This of course falls on my shoulders, I should have done this before but I made the fatal error of assuming.
I’m expecting a much better experience this upcoming season!
Well that about wraps up my “do a better job maintaining your equipment” rambling for today!
Thanks for coming along!
