screwy hydraulic fittings

Yesterday I was round balling a little hay and got 5 or 6 bales made when I blew a hose. Turns out the fitting on the baler end wasn't jic, or compression, or metric, or npt, or anything else that was available at the hydraulic shop this morning.

Ended up taking the steel line off, having them cut it off and put a jic fitting on it, and then make a new hose to fit.

Should be able to finish baling today. Baler is a NH 630 that we're borrowing from a neighbor.

Donovan from Wisconsin

We're they a flat face with an o-ring to seal them ?

Hope the owner of the machine was involved in this decision ?

Nope. We checked that too. Looked like a compression fitting union, but it wasn't. The other line already has a mess of stuff on it at the baler end. This end is clean and a simple jic that can be found at fleet farm or tsc if it blows again. I even called the dealer but they had no idea. did if the hydraulic shop didn't have it, they wouldn't have it either and it's be a special order deal.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Nope. We checked that too. Looked like a compression fitting union, but it wasn't. The other line already has a mess of stuff on it at the baler end. This end is clean and a simple jic that can be found at fleet farm or tsc if it blows again. I even called the dealer but they had no idea. did if the hydraulic shop didn't have it, they wouldn't have it either and it's be a special order deal.

Donovan from Wisconsin

New Holland was handy with that design!

I've done that many times out of both necessity and convenience. What's really screwy is when they have a rubber line attached to the end of a steel line. There is no shop that I have ever found that can make up something like that......and when one blows at 5 o'clock on a Friday evening, and the customer has a job to get done, it gets modified to something that both works, and will be available next time. In other words, good call on changing it to something that works.

More then likely it was British.

i think there is also a "JIC automotive" that is similar to some but won't interchange. Maybe that is what you have?? had..

Have a local guy here that actually has them.

They weren't anything JIC, Metric, Oring, or NPT. It's possible it was British, but I wasn't gonna keep guessing.

I brought the baler back on Wednesday, and happened to drive past and catch him outside on my way to work yesterday so I stopped and told him what I had done to it.

Here's the story of how we got our hands on it in the first place-

This year our barn is almost full and not enough room for all of 3rd crop. No room in the back of the barn for more large squares to be stacked either, as the last 15 or 20 of those we had to stack outside and we're still feeding them up. Only option was round bales or chop. We've still got 2 bags full of hay (first crop last year, second crop this year) and didn't want a third lined up out there.


Our hay was on the ground, and the original owner of it last year asked if we were interested in it. We don't have a good indoor place to store a round baler, so we declined. We were wondering if we could perhaps use (rent it if needed) it and then we could line them up outside. He sold it to another neighbor that we had never met or dealt with another road over. Told us to go over and see him.

We did so and asked if he would be able to bale it for us, or if we could rent it from him. We started talking and he said we could come get it and use it, no rent needed.(was a shock to me to be honest) He went over it with me, told me of the few issues he's had with it (roller chain jumped off the top sprockets on occasion, bale alarm didn't work after a bearing was replaced, and the twine knife didn't seem to cut right and would rats nest the twine before cutting it.

I picked it up the next day and while waiting for the hay to dry some more, I started going over it. I replaced all roller chains on it because most seemed to be stretched enough to make a problem. (about $100 worth of chain) I took the twine knife out and file sharpened the side that looked better, and put it back in. I think he had the knife in backwards so it didn't cut it as well, plus an angle grinder sharpened edge that wasn't as sharp, more rounded. I replaced the busted eye on the cable to the battery, I greased it up, and went to the field. I fiddled with the alarm here & there and got it to work , although the light is burnt out and could barely hear the alarm over the tractor.

I baled what I could on that Sunday, but the rest was too wet to even try baling. We got rain and it was last Sunday before I could get out there again. I got 5 or 6 bales and blew a hose. Tried getting adapters and such at fleet farm and thought I had what I needed, but the one fitting screwed me up.

Monday morning I was able to drop my son off at school and go right to the hydraulic shop and start working on getting what I needed. After going to both in town, it was determined to just cut the tube off and go with a common fitting. I did that and Dad finished baling while I was at work. The hose was about another $75.

After I told him what I had done, all he asked was "Well, how much do I owe ya?" I just said you let us use your baler so don't worry about it.

He was happy I got a bunch of the bugs worked out, and we were happy to get our hay baled. Needless to say, I think we have another guy as a friend, and another one that can work with us if needed.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Sounds like good, old-time neighboring, there. We always seemed to be the good neighbor who fixed up the borrowed tools, as well. Grandpa relied a lot on a co-op system with other farmers- shared a corn planter, manure spreader, etc. Everything had to go back better than it came over, clean, greased, full of fuel. Dad even talks of how the neighbor's cow would pull up her stake and wander over for some good eating for a few days...went back well fed, washed, and milked on time.