# Hesston 540 round baler



## CTPhil (Jun 13, 2017)

I have a Hesston 540, actually rebadged to Case/IH. I bought it over 5 years ago and could never get it to work right. When starting a bale, every few bales hay will travel up the bale chamber and wrap the top roller, the one that presses against the rubber roller. It gets jammed so bad it can take hours to unjam. Right now the baler is sitting with the tailgate up where I left it a year and a half ago jammed so bad I can't even run it backwards with a big wrench. I pick away at it here and there, but it kills my bad shoulders. Last year I bought a 530 as an interim baler and used that for the season.

A couple of years ago it spent over 5 weeks at the regional Case/IH dealer. I instructed them to go over it hitch to tailgate and find and fix anything wrong. 2 trips back and forth and it still didn't work. They got several thousand dollars of my money and in the final analysis left me questioning their competence, but to be fair a lot of the work they did needed to be done. But it still didn't work. So I took it to a New Idea dealer that had an old time mechanic, and he found a bunch of things the other dealer missed, and he even came out and walked alongside while I was baling. But there it is, sitting in the yard jammed up tight.

I've scratched my head plenty over it, and questioned my own operating ability quite a bit too. But I can make round bales with the 530, so it isn't entirely me. My latest session had me wondering about the belts. It has the stock style Chevron belts but I'm wondering if they are just too aggressive for my native hay. I've looked back when starting bales and actually seen hay being tossed or dragged up towards the top of the chamber when starting a roll.

Sorry to be so long winded, does anyone have any opinions on the matter? I'm just stubborn enough to keep banging my head on it. Thank you.


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## Snow Farmer (Aug 30, 2011)

What kind of hay/grass are you baling?


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## CTPhil (Jun 13, 2017)

It is mostly Orchardgrass with some red clover, often somewhat weedy and with other grasses depending on the field. I dry it as if I'm small square baling so I guess you could say it is somewhat slippery.


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## CTPhil (Jun 13, 2017)

I'm bumping this thread because I've been having further thoughts about this baler. I've been painstakingly clearing the massive hay wrap on the upper bale chamber roller, hay jammed around the roller under the belts and forced incredibly tightly against the drive roller. I've literally spent over 20 hours hacking away at it and it's finally clear. In the process all of the belts were unlaced. I was putting everything back together, and decided to double check the belt routing with the diagram, and what I saw did not match how I remembered it being. So I looked at some old pictures, and I think it's been threaded wrong ever since I got it! If true, it explains everything!

Here's the old pic I'm using for reference. Could this be my problem? Thanks!

[sharedmedia=gallery:albums:724]


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

It looks like you might be on to something. One would reason that the belt goes under the bottom roller as you suggest and go up/over and out the upper roller? I would hazard to guess without the routing chart, but I see no reason for that bottom roller to be riding against the bale without a belt being between it and the bale.

You may just be on your way to having it whipped!!

Good luck, Mark


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## SpeckleCreekRanch (Mar 21, 2018)

I only run Deere balers but from your picture they are identical, and you are correct the belt is on the wrong side of that tension arm. On the deere the belts run real close to one another there as its the top of the bale chamber, where one belt heads to the top of the baler and the other is returning from the top. My operators manual even mentions that if you want to run the baler empty for a while you should open it as the belts there will rub with the tension arm all the way down.


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## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

I've got a manual for a Hesston 5545. It may be similar to your baler. Here are a couple of pages showing the belt path.


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## CTPhil (Jun 13, 2017)

Thanks for the replies! I think I'm confident now that the belts are routed incorrectly, and I'm going to re-route them.  What a relief to finally find an answer. Beats me why the more than half dozen professional mechanics that looked at it didn't spot it. I wouldn't have either if not for the many hours I've spent inside that monster clearing impossible hay jams.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

CTPhil said:


> I wouldn't have either if not for the many hours I've spent inside that monster clearing impossible hay jams.


Looks like you just became the new expert on Hesston. May your frustrations be over (at least with that problem, you might still have a few if you decide to continue to put up hay, however ).

Larry


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## Aaroncboo (Sep 21, 2014)

One advantage to having thing take a crap on you and you fixing, swearing and crying while fixing it is that you learn alot about the machine at the same time. I was convinced Knotters were some sort of witchcraft until I was having issues with them and had to basically cry my way through the whole thing... Lol. Now Im really good at working and troubleshooting them. So now you are that much wiser about the machine.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

CTPhil

Your thread reminds of several yrs back my neighbor asked me to look at his JD rd baler because the belts wouldn't turn when pto was engaged. He told me he had removed a roller similar to the exposed roller in your photo to replace the brgs. I asked him to open tailgate. I saw the exposed roller & told him he had belts routed incorrectly. He stated he had them routed according to a photo he took before removing roller. He stated he'd go get photo & sure enough he had belts routed incorrectly. He re=routed the belt & then belts turned when pto was engaged.

Jim


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## CTPhil (Jun 13, 2017)

Well I'm hoping I'm on the down side of the ordeal. It fought me to the last. I ended up removing all of the belts and measuring them. One that needed a new splice was 2" longer than the others, which were surprisingly close to each other and nearly right on spec. So now all six are the same length, a nice baseline to start with. I finally got them all in this afternoon. Grease it and oil the chains and I should be there. And now it's raining, again. I'm actually pretty confident it will work, but it will be a while before I can test it out.


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## CTPhil (Jun 13, 2017)

Aaroncboo said:


> One advantage to having thing take a crap on you and you fixing, swearing and crying while fixing it is that you learn alot about the machine at the same time. I was convinced Knotters were some sort of witchcraft until I was having issues with them and had to basically cry my way through the whole thing... Lol. Now Im really good at working and troubleshooting them. So now you are that much wiser about the machine.


I don't even want to know what the neighbors think, they sure got an earful.  And hopefully I did actually pick something up by osmosis.


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