# Will a Ford 8N run a small baler, or do I need a motor baler?



## DaveW (Sep 12, 2015)

The title of this post says it all--should I forget about running a small baler from the 8N PTO? Should I get a baler that has its own motor? (I'm talking used, low-priced equipment for 2-3 acres of hay).

Thanks much for any advice!


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## cornshucker (Aug 22, 2011)

Definitely should get one with it's own engine the non-live PTO would drive you nuts if you had to stop and feed a bigger clump of hay in the baler.


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## ANewman (Sep 20, 2012)

Dad had a 2N Ford. We never tried to bale with it but did bale with a WD Allis Chalmers, which is just a few more HP. Gear selection will probably definitely be an issue. It'd probably do it but I would hate to be the one in the seat while it is


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

For said acreage, do what makes sense for you.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

The thin that would concern me the most...if the over-run clutch/ratchet pawl ever malfunctions on the baler, I would expect that baler to push that non-live pto tractor plumb off of that 2.5 acres before the baler's flywheel ever lost momentum. On the wd mentioned, they had a "clutch" that acted to make a live-type pto that would make running a baler less troublesome.

I might lessen that concern by placing an aftermarket overrun pto adapter on the tractor's pto shaft.

I never personally was a fan of Ford tractors, but AM a fan of being pot-committed... I personally would try buy the baler and attempt to use the tractor I own....then buy another tractor....then a bigger mower to fit the bigger tractor...for me, haymaking has circular purchasing possibilities!

In my limited experience, I would shy away from intending to use the Ford as a baling tractor for any extended period of time, but I'm sure it would do for awhile or in a pinch...if overrun clutch is ok

73, Mark


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## Tim/South (Dec 12, 2011)

How small of a baler would you consider?

If you are thinking the miniature bales then an 8N would probably work.

If you want to make 14 x 16 bales then the 8N would take a beating. Even the lowest gear on an 8N would be to fast unless the windrows were extremely thin. On a normal size windrow the 8N would be rocking back and forth on each stroke of the plunger. Not sure how long the tractor would stay together.


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## Orchard6 (Apr 30, 2014)

It can be done! I've baled with a Farmall C (22hp) before with both a 14t and a NH 268. It's not ideal and won't pull a wagon behind the baler but it'll work if it's all you have.
As for the pto being transmission driven, it's never been a huge deal for me, it just requires an actual tractor operator and not just a steering wheel holder to operate it! You'll need an overrunning clutch adaptor to go from the 8n's 1 1/8" pto shaft to the common 1 3/8" pto shaft size anyways, so you should have 2 overrunning clutches in the driveline to protect yourself from being pushed around by the baler should one clutch fail.

P.s.
Don't forget that rated pto speed on an 8n is at 3/4 throttle unless you have a Sherman over/under drive.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

I would be as concerned, if not more concerned, by the weight of the 8n running a baler. If you buy a baler with an engine you still have to be able to control it and stop it


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

thendrix said:


> I would be as concerned, if not more concerned, by the weight of the 8n running a baler. If you buy a baler with an engine you still have to be able to control it and stop it


 All the Amish use are a team of horses


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## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

You can bale with an 8N. Google youtube for some videos of it being done and you'll have to learn how to kick it out of gear quickly if the baler starts to choke without letting the baler plunger stop - else you'll be on your knees cleaning out the wad of hay jamming up the baler! I used my brother's TO20 Ferguson to finish a field and I was surprised how good a fit it was. If you use a low capacity old baler, like my New Holland 68 or a JD 14T, your windrows are going to be only so large because of the slowness of the baler to eat it up and the pickup width. I think these old tractors like an 8N, Ferguson TO20 and balers like the NH68 and JD14T - the engineers must have had in mind feeding them a cut and windrow from a 7 ft single swath where the hay was the heaviest vs the giant windrows we make now.









Good luck,
Bill


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

DaveW said:


> The title of this post says it all--should I forget about running a small baler from the 8N PTO? Should I get a baler that has its own motor? (I'm talking used, low-priced equipment for 2-3 acres of hay).
> 
> Thanks much for any advice!


Dad and Grandpa ran a Ford 532 small square baler for years off the PTO of the old Ford Jubilee 8N...

Worked fine. Not fast, but fine...

Later! OL JR 

PS... plenty of em on youtube!


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

A Jubilee or an 8N?


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

deadmoose said:


> A Jubilee or an 8N?


Jubilee, but he ran it on an 8N as well...

He had two of those old "flea-catchers" (as the neighbor called them)... an old 52 (IIRC) 8N that we nicknamed "Junkpile" (probably because you always had to tow it get it started-- you'd kill the battery trying to crank it) and the "Jubilee".

"Junkpile" went down the road in 83 after Grandpa died; Grandma replaced it with a brand new Ford 2310 three cylinder diesel... night and day...

"Jubilee" stuck around the place for raking hay and light shredding with a bush-hog until about the mid-90's, when it finally went to the tractor salvage my brother worked for...

I remember Dad and Grandpa baling with those old Fords back when I was a kid. We got fire ants REALLY bad here in the late 70's, to the point where you couldn't lift a bale off the ground and set it on the trailer without having ants to your elbows just that quick, and with help getting harder and harder to find, Grandpa finally made the switch to a round baler in the spring of 82, just before he got sick (and died the following February). He traded the old square baler on it.

He and Dad paid for the Shiner farm by baling and selling hay. Grandpa had tried farming cotton on it for a number of years after he bought the place in 58, and nearly lost it (too sandy and rainfall too spotty for good row crops there IMHO). They used to use a New Holland baler with a four cylinder Wisconsin engine on it... Dad would be raking with one tractor while Grandpa baled with the other one...

Dad tells the story that one day Grandpa was baling and just started turning the corner, when the flywheel came loose from the baler and went flying across the field... it caromed across the field straight at the tractor, but luckily it hit the back tire, slammed into the fender, and went flying directly over Grandpa's head, and landed out in the hay meadow beyond... He said if Grandpa hadn't been turning at the time, putting the tire between him and the flywheel, it would have hit him square in the back and killed him, as that flywheel was about 500 pounds on that old baler, so Dad said... At the time he was still a kid in high school and they'd have surely lost the farm...

I remember Jubilee still having the perforation and dent on the fender from where the flywheel hit it...

A year or two later, the Ford dealer got in the (then) new Ford 532 (IIRC the number) PTO drive square balers, and he made Grandpa a sweetheart deal, basically giving him top-dollar in trade and selling the baler basically "at cost" in order to get one out in the field and get people to see it in action, and stimulate some folks into trading for the new balers... Grandpa took him up on it and sent the old Wisconsin engine-drive baler to town. Dad was thrilled, because there was NOTHING WORSE, so he said, then wrestling and fighting with one of those old hand-cranked, tempermental, prone to vapor lock, won't start when it's hot air cooled Wisconsin baler engines...

They ran the 532 PTO baler on the Jubilee (and Junkpile too sometimes, the old 8N) basically until the mid-70's when they got the Ford 5200 row crop diesel...

At some point they DID get an old Deere 620, and Dad said that was a good combination-- those big Deere flywheels really made it bale smooth... And Dad probably put it behind his old Super M wide front he had when I was a little kid...

But they liked running it on the Jubilee and did for many years...

Later! OL JR


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

Awful lot of hay baled (and re-baled, ) with a McCormick 45-T behind a Farmall H, pretty much same HP as an 8N!


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Thorim said:


> All the Amish use are a team of horses


HAHA and those five horse probably outweigh and will out pull an 8N.

Have a 801 Ford forklift (updated 8N from how I understand it) how ford ever managed to sell that many of the N series is beyond me.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

They were no slouch in their day. Did anyone else compete with the 3 pt hitch in the N series reign?


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