Had a fairly critical situation this past weekend while baling some fairly dry hay with my Hesston 540. The baler is in excellent condition and well maintained. I have used the machine already a few times this season and not had any issues, but given the dry and hot conditions this weekend, there was a lot more dry fines flying around and nearly resulted in the total loss of the baler. And it occurred TWICE in a few hours...
Backdrop: The baler was being pulled by a rather ancient Case 800 which is well down in power and which had a bunch of issues with the hydraulic system for the first time ever.. It seems like the pump lost its prime after changing out one of the hoses (which had been leaking) attached to the pump. Thus when starting the first bale in the field, it did not generate adequate hydraulic pressure to properly close the bale door. It appears that if the door is not properly closed, there is a problem getting the bale started and the intake tends to plug up solid. There also appears to be a lot of friction on the square section roller near the intake and that friction makes the square roller very hot. Hot enough that fines which came into contact with the locking collar on the shaft were smoking and when I opened the side door to look for the source of the smoke they flamed up instantly and I quickly had burning hay at the intake. I ended up putting out the fire with my bare hands (pulling the burning hay out the intake). The only reason it worked was because I caught it right as it got started.
I then unplugged the intake and observed what was happening when the door closed and realized that it took a long time for the pressure to peak out once the door reached the home position. Thereafter I paid special attention every time the door was closed and to whether the intake was staying clear. The second time it happened, I could see the moment the intake started clogging and stoped the baler. The shaft was hot again, but not hot enough to ignite any material. I could immediately tell that the door had sprung open again. Cleared the intake again (much easier the second time), cleared all the fines out of the critical area and started again. Shortly after that the hydraulic pressure went back to normal and it was no longer a problem opening, closing or keeping the door closed. I checked the shaft collar that had been hot several times and it was only warm, certainly not a fire risk. I put a gallon container of water into the twine compartment as a poor man's fire extinguisher (heck of a lot more useful than nothing)...
I will go ahead and replace the bearing because I am sure it will not last after getting as hot as it did, but I do not believe that the bearing was the cause of the problem. Both times were associated with a plugged intake and a door that had popped open. The only way to know that it is going to happen is to pay attention to the intake being clear. If the door opens a bit than it seems that the intake will plug up in short order. After that one has only seconds before a fire. On my baler remote there is a green light to indicate that the door is closed, but about half way through making a bale the green light goes out. So it is not a very positive way to know that the door is closed. Of course if I had a decent tractor with 2500psi hydraulics I may not have any of these issues at all, but tractors are expensive nowadays... The Tier 4 tractors seem to have added $5000 to $7000 to the price of used equipment...
I hope that this may help someone else avoid a potentially disastrous situation.
Hesston 540 baler fire averted..... Possible operation issue ???
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