Tractor Repair: NH 273 Hayliner, packer fork, windrows

Question
Hi
 I've got a nice old NH 273 works pretty well, but one side of the bale is about an inch or two longer then the other? Where do I adjust for this? The bales are tight and it almost never misses a knot. Is it the feed of hay going into the chamber or a knotter issue or twine feed????

Answer
Hello,

  This is an issue of not enough hay being fed into one side of the bale chamber resulting in that side of the bale being shorter than the other.  Sometimes it can get real extreme to the point that you can't keep the twine from sliding off the end of the bale, or the bales are shaped like a banana.  If you had a different model that had a feeder arm that went around on a chain on 2 sprockets, you could move the feeder tines left or right on the tine bar until it fed an equal amount to both sides.  But since yours has a feeder that just slides back and forth in a track, the tines are not movable so theres no adjustment.  There are a couple of things that can help, though.  First make sure all the tines are there and that none have broken off or fell out.  Replace any missing or broken springs that pull the tines into the down position.  It helps to have windrows that are big enough and are uniform in size.  If the hay is short and the windrows are small or uneven size, it makes it worse.  Sometimes it helps to feed the hay into one side of the pickup rather than in the center of it.  Because of this issue, New Holland stopped using this style feeder and went back to the chain for awhile and then went to the rotor and packer fork style they use now.