# problem with knotter on NH BB960



## PaulM (Jul 3, 2009)

My knife arm keeps breaking on one knotter of my New Holland BB960 big square baler.
When that happens, the twine finger ends up facing the wrong way. When I tie it by hand, everything looks fine. Does anyone have experienc with this problem? My dealer doesn't know what to do.


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## nwfarmer (Jun 16, 2009)

sometimes I wonder about farm equipment dealers. In my short amount of experience I have found that the ones that have the most experience repairing equipment in this area are the independent farm equipment mechanics. Some of these guys are old time farmers and some are mechanics that have left dealerships

I have also found that the independents are also happy to show you what they are doing when, for example, are timing a baler etc.

Guess that doesn't help much to fix the problem. If it were timing I think you would have problems on all of them. Could it be string tension or something chaffed that grabs the string on one knotter? I have had broken needles because bad string feeding eyes stopping the string. A chaffed slot in the eye.


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## bunchgrass1 (Jul 4, 2009)

Hi Paul,

I'm having problems with my knotter as well (JD 347 baler) so I don't know how much help I can be, except that I've experienced a variety of baler troubles through the years though mostly small squares. So, I assume the breaking of the knife arm comes when it hits something else that's "out of position". Are you saying that the bill hook (and the gear that drives it) are rotated facing the wrong way when it goofs up and that may be what the knife is hitting ? On the JD balers there are some washers (shims) that are used to position the knotter frames along the knotter gear drive shaft - if your baler is similar, you need to remove shims that are keeping the knotter frame from allowing the gear on top of your billhook from staying tight to the drive gear that runs the whole knotter. I know it's a lot of words but look at shimming the knotter frame tighter to the drive - that should keep the billhook from turning out of position -

I feel your pain


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## TBrown (Nov 27, 2008)

We had a piece of the cast cam gear that drives the knotter break on our old hesston large square. Sometimes it would work fine then the next thingyou know it would break the cutter arm. if your billhook is turned wrong something is broke in the track or the roll pin fell out that holds the billhook in.


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