Baler Maintenance Tips
Balers are an essential part of agricultural operations as they’re the equipment that helps you organize your crop. To make sure they continue to serve you efficiently, you have to take proper care of them by performing some maintenance steps. Without this, you’ll end up damaging your investment and decreasing its lifespan by months or even years!
We at Prairieland Partners have compiled this informative guide on baler maintenance. If you need expert baler service and repair or are looking for models for sale in Kansas, get in touch with us and one of our expert staff will gladly help you out.
Grab Your Owner’s Manual
The best way to know how to take proper care of your baler is to read through your owner’s manual. A lot of the following information is generally applicable to most baler models but some machines might have parts and features that need to be handled differently. Your manual will also provide a maintenance log to help you keep track of the inspections you perform and the problems you want to keep an eye on or address later. If you don’t have your owner’s manual anymore, or if you can’t find it, you can search for it online.
Proper Inspections
As with most machines on your farm, you need to conduct thorough inspections of your baler to ensure that all its parts are functioning properly. Look at it from top to bottom, keeping an eye out for any signs of damage or wear that should be addressed as soon as possible. You should also test out some of the mechanisms to ensure they’re working smoothly.
It’ll be helpful for you to set up a schedule and mark when these inspections took place so you know when the next one should be. Make a list of things that should be inspected on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. Make sure the hydraulics system makes it on your list of things to inspect. It operates under heat and pressure, which can leave it particularly prone to maintenance problems.
Cleaning
One way to avoid needless wear and tear, as well as rust, is to keep your baler clean. As it works, your machine gathers a lot of mud, grime and debris, which can start to wear down areas and end up reducing their lifespan. You should make it a point to get rid of all the grime by hosing down your baler as often as the need arises, most likely after each use.
Spare Parts
This is an important part of baler maintenance and needs your attention if you don’t want some problem to cause you to halt all operations for hours or even days. You should keep a few important spare parts with you at all times to fix problems right away. This can include hoses, spark plugs, and tines, as well as smaller things like nuts and bolts. If the part is a bit rarer, you might want to ask your dealer to get it for you in advance rather than wait for it after a problem occurs.
Some Important Checks
There are some baler maintenance tasks that should be performed regularly. Here are a few of them:
- Change gearbox fluid levels as recommended by the manual
- Tighten lug bolts as needed
- Inspect chains and belts for wear, tension, and cracks
- Grease the necessary moving parts
- Change the filters as needed, including the hydraulic-system filter
- Check the auto-lube system
- Look for leaks
We hope these tips help you take better care of your baler! Of course, you won’t be able to address all the issues that crop up, so get in touch with our service department at Prairieland Partners. If you’re looking for balers for sale in Kansas, contact our sales department!