MF32 Sickle Bar Mower Update 08-27-14

Bill VA

Well-known Member
Been burning the midnight oil getting first my JD350 rake shaped-up and then my NH68 baler tying bales and the past few nights, me and my youngest boy (he's only 16 yrs old, over 6 ft tall and wears a size 12 shoes) have been touching up the Massey Ferguson model 32 pitman, 7 ft sickle bar mower.

Last night we sharpened the ledger plates on the guards and replaced one guard. New guards are coming over the winter, so our effort for now is to get the hay equipment into the field and see what we've got, so our efforts are limited to polishing what we've got rather than a full bore restore at this time.

Tonight we greased everything, set the knife in place, adjusting the hold downs and a couple of guards with a big hammer. We also put an adjustable stabilizer bar on the right hand side of the mower as my fixed length one pushed the mower to far to the right and the lead is off. The new adjustable stabilizer bar let, us square the mower and see where we stood with regards to the bar lead - all good.

With few spare guards, sickle sections, matched set of new belts and a pitman on hand if we needed them, we fired up the MF50 diesel and headed off to the field.

First attempt at mowing, got a piece of old barbed wire in the mower. Got that cleared, no real damage I could see and moved on. Darkness was coming fast and the dew was on the ground, everything getting wetter, but we wanted to at least give the mower a run - plugs or not.

Started mowing in 2nd gear low range and that seemed to do OK, but got a few minor plugs - which I backed out of and then tried 3rd gear low range. That worked great. I was able to move fast enough that it seemed the grass didn't have time to pile up in front of the mower. I also tried 1st gear high range and that worked ok too, but for the wetness of the dew covered grass, and the visibility I had, 3rd low worked great. PTO rpms were at 540.

It's interesting that this pitman mower (and maybe belt drive mowers are the same) seems to want to speak to you if it is nearing a plug. It runs really quiet, but begins to chatter slightly if it is seeing a plug to begin and maybe if I'm overloading it. I'll be paying a lot of attention to this. Also, it will be interesting to see how fast I can mow or how fast I want/feel comfortable mowing when everything dries out.

Question - how fast do you typically mow with your sickle bar mower?

As far as content, this is the second cut, first was bush hogged on Memorial Day Weekend. There is a lot of grass from 12-18 inches high and much to my surprise, very thick in 75% of what I mowed. There is taller stuff and shorter/thinner too, but I think I'll get a few hundred bales off these old neglected fields. The hay is a mixture of orchard grass, fescue, timothy, clover, native grasses and of course weeds. It is our intent to start over with these fields in the near future.

One of the things I kept thinking about is the negative comments about sickle bar mowers. I'm 4th generation on this farm and my great grandfather never knew electricity on this place, never owned a tractor and know one remembers a horse drawn sickle mower that I know of. Hay was probably cut with a hand scythe (sp?) and what an advancement the sickle bar made on farms like this one back in the day.

I have mowed down these fields with a 5 ft bush hog and it seems like I'm taking a 4 or 4-1/2 ft cut. This MF32 is seeing pretty much a full 7 ft cut and at the rate I was mowing, I can see this particular 5 acre field will get cut fairly quickly.

Knock on wood - more mowing tomorrow and we'll see how the rake and baler perform.

Bill
 
Bill,
I do not remember sharpening the ledger plates on my #32MF mower, they were serrated.

I just replaced them, sharpen the blade sections. I used serrated blade section.

I made sure it was in proper register.

It would do a good job in weeds and light hay, but would tend to choke in heavy hay.

Mine has a 6 ft blade.

Good luck with the old mower.
 
5 MPH at 540 PTO RPM was a reasonable speed for a MF41 belt drive mower (no shims between the driven pulley halves). A 7 foot mower could cut 3 acres an hour. The sickle speed might be slower on a pitman mower, so the ground speed might also need to be slightly lower.
 
All depends on the hay and terrain. Not real sure how fast it is, but on upland prairie hay, 4th gear with a 450D Farmall, 3rd on a DC Case, 5th on an 800 Case, and 4th with an Oliver 88 Super. All pitman mowers. I never run mine at 540 RPM. After you run one for awhile, you can tell by the sound when you are to fast engine wise, and ground speed.
Right now, I am trying to mow out a swamp, with my 800 Case. 2nd gear high rpm, and back up every bit as much as I go forward. GRRRRRRRR
 
you might look for one of these owners manuals, lot of good information in there about the old mower.
a couple of pictures of my old mower, oiled, greased and ready to go to the field.

note: the pto shaft runs crooked on mine, I adjust it so its flat, but runs at an angle, has never been a problem.
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Nice looking tractor and mower!

First thing I did when I got this MF32 was order a manual from the dealer and have it in hand. The mower came with a MF42 manual, which I gather was the replacement for this mower. Set-up is similar and has some clearer pics too.

Thanks,
Bill
 
The ledger plates on the existing guards were serrated, but badly worn and rounded at the edges. My knife sections are underserrated. So I took my angle grinder and sharpened the ledger plates, basically grinding down the serrations perpendicular to the top of the ledger plate, giving me a pretty sharp cornered smooth ledger to complement my underserrated knife sections.

Again, I will replace these guards with new ones - with serrated ledger plates and use smooth sections on the knife. That is a winter project.
 
3rd gear on my MF50 is 3.6 mph and 1st gear hi is 5.3 at I'm pretty sure 540 PTO speed.

This evening, i mowed 1st gear hi and the MF32 did great!

Thanks,
Bill
 
Thanks again everyone for your comments.

Mowed again tonight, knocking down probably 2 acres before it got dark on me again. Ran the mower in 1st gear high range on my MF50 and I believe that ground speed is 5.3 mph.

The mower cut great with an occasional pile up of grass at the tip or heal and I could raise the bar and it would clear. As the dew came down the flow of the hay slowed, but when I started, all was dry and had zero problems. Only had one plug where I had to get off the tractor and that was my fault - still in the learning curve on this mower.

Speaking of learning curve, I'm watching and listening to this mower to better understand how it reacts to ground conditions. As the dew got heavier, sometimes hay would want to pile up at the end of the bar. A slight wiggle of the steering wheel would disrupt the path of cutting enough that the clump would pass. Towards the end of the day, I started getting pretty good at using my steering breaks to spin around on the rear wheel, giving me some nice sharp corners.

Thanks again for everyone's help!

Bill
 
As with your baler or a haybine or any other implement, you go as fast as the implement and ground will allow in the conditions you have. Start mowing in the morning and by the afternoon you may be 2 gears higher. Start on upland meadows and work lower and you may have to slow. Some ground you just have to go slow. Vetch always gave me headaches with my old JD 9 sickle bar because it would gather on the bar no matter what you did. 2nd or 3rd cut would often gather on the guard tips unless it was a dry breezy day. There's a reason haybines and discbines superseded sicklebars.
 
one thing I forgot to mention:

you might want to check and be sure the kick back trip spring and catch are working properly.

if it has not been tripped in many years, it could be frozen up and will not trip when needed.

I would not lube the trip catch area, but you might want to loosen the spring tension nut and clean the matting parts.

adjust it so that it trips in heavy hay with a ball of material on the end of the bar,
**just to be sure it works properly**

then increase the spring tension until it does not trip under normal cutting.

I have hit a hidden stump or other object over the years and that trip device saved my butt!!!!!!!!!

just a heads up!

I can still remember which field I was in and the very spot, the first time it tripped,

I was just a kid back then and thought I had torn up dads new mower when it tripped and open up, looks like you have torn it apart.

I looked at it and thought to myself, looks like I just could back up and it would re-latch.

it did, but I was still sweating goose eggs.
 

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