575 NH High Capacity issue and resolve....

Was merrily bailing along spitting out idiot squares in my 8 week past cut hay when I looked back and my pickup reel wasn't picking up anymore.

 

Stopped the tractor and pto and got out and had a look-see.  The pickup was freewheeling so I went to the drive side, opened the access door and I saw the issue, the 'lost motion' reel drive belt broke.

 

I thought no big thing, I'll get a new belt (checked the manual, was 83" 5L width so I trundled down to the hardware store (10 miles from the field) and got one, came back and took a good look.  You cannot replace the belt on a 575 by just 'putting it on'.  You have to pull the spur gears (definitely a service call or a barn jub ot both (if I got it out of time), so home it went and in the 100 degree barn, sweating my arse off, I pulled the back gears, knotter came actuator, shims, all the while praying silently that I would not need a service (expensive call) to retime the unit.

 

Had to get a new woodruff drive key (the original one didn't want to come out nicely), cleaned up the actuator cam drive of old grease (I had to emery cloth the shaft end to get the paint off...), put on the new belt, adjusted the trnsion on the idler and reassembleled the drive.  While I was at it, I pulled the cap on the intermediate gear, popped the tapered bearings out and repacked them too. 

 

Might as well repack the bearings wjile everything is apart.

 

I sure like the gear drive over the roller chains of old, but belt replacement got way more complex and time consuming.

 

Had my wife roll it over when I tripped it, everything ran as it should, took it to the field and ran off a quick 400 cubes (to finish).

 

I had a service call on order (cancelled it) but my dealer told me thjat no less than 4 others had broken belts this year.  Bad year with rank hay.  I had the original belt that broke and showed no wear (other than it parted company)....

 

All is well that ends well.  Cost:  18 bucks plus tax and about 5 bottles of coild water as I sweated my butt off in the barn.

575 NH High Capacity issue and resolve....