# 1946 Farmall M cuttin hay with 1988'ish Hesston 1120 (pics)



## rankrank1 (Mar 30, 2009)

Do not post here much as most my stuff antiquated but thought you might like some pics nonetheless.









No laughing at the haybine lift system now...


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Mowed hay until 2003 with a 1942 M and a 1219 JD moco. 2nd gear and 4 acres an hour.


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## rankrank1 (Mar 30, 2009)

I use 2nd gear (3.5 mph) for the perimeters around the edges and then all other mowing is done in 3rd gear (4.3 mph) wide open throttle. 3rd gear is perfect for how I operate with no hydraulic cylinder as it is a good safe speed for making the 90 degree turns with the haybine cutting roundy round towards the center. The M likely has enough hp to pull it in 4th (5.1 mph) but with no live PTO clutching is not an option, no power shift so no easy way to slow down or speed up other than throttling down. I prefer to keep my implent operating at near 540 PTO rpm so prefer not to touch the throttle. All in all 3rd gear is a nice speed for making the turns and covers decent ground on the straightaways. One can certainly lay down some hay with a 9'3" cutter traveling at 4.3 mph.

Now when I put the Farmall h on the cutter it sees 2nd gear a lot more due to lack of tractor hp but my ole Farmall h has surprised me many times running this cutter and it will handle 3rd gear too when conditions are perfectly optimum or hay is light but the ole h does needs 2nd gear when conditions are heavey or are otherwise less than optimum.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

We ran in 3rd some in good standing alfalfa. Can't even rake hay with an M any more because they will not pull the wheel rake in road gear (5th). GPS was showing 11.9 MPH when I was mowing last week and 14.8 when I raked it! Mowed 23 acre field in 1:50 and raked it in 50 minutes.


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## rankrank1 (Mar 30, 2009)

I rake with two old John Deere model 594 hay rakes on steel wheels. 5 to 6 mph is about the absolute fastest you can pull them. They work best in the 4.5 to 5.0 mph range.

The farmall h, farmall m, or my John Deere A are my raking tractors. The h or m are 4th gear WOT to achieve 5.1 mph. I like the A for raking though as I can gear up and throttle down and listen to the putt putt away real quiet music to the ears.


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