Hay equip. where to start?

[jlspicer]

Yep,
There are alot of different brands of pull behind sickle mowers. IH, JD, and NH made them to name a few. They come up for sale quite a bit around me. The 560 would make a nice mower/baler tractor for you Jeff. Live hydraulics, live PTO. Love my 560D and she sips fuel. Good luck!

 

[sblunier]

Too bad 656 and 544 hydros are so pricey.....talk about the perfect haying tractor!!!!!!

 

[sblunier]

Plenty of 3 pt Sickles out there too.....I've cut many acres with an old IH pitman style 7' on the back of the 684.....

 

[bjamison]

IMHO - one of the best bangs for the buck is the AC WD45. With the hand clutch, they essentially have live PTO - which is very nice for the sickle mower and baler. If not already done, they can be easily converted to a 3 pt hitch, though the snap coupler hitch is IMHO a pretty neat design - and there are snap coupler implements, including sickle mowers out there.

Here's our first cut this year

 

[mgwin]

Speaking of sickle mowers, how do you get the pins out of the blades when you change them? I have ground them down flush on both sides and tried to drive them out with a punch with no success. I have sprayed them with PB too. Any ideas?

 

[dlouw]

Hi Marty, I am sure others more knowledgeable will chip in but from what I remember from my childhood days on the farm (in the late fifties, here in sunny South Africa), you place the bar, blades pointing down, in a bench vice. The vice is opened just wide enough to make the blades slide in. With the retaining bar resting on the solid part of the vice, you simply wack the blade to be removed with a 4lb hammer. The pins shear off and you simply pop the remaining half of the rivets out off the retainer bar with a small punch.
Admittedly, this was long before gas welding and angle grinders.

 

[digger]

Marty G.
It's easier to give you a link to video how too's, than explain it, cause EVERYONE does it different, LOL
https://www.google.com/search?q=replacing+sickle+bar+knives&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8