# New Holland 404 crusher



## farmboy9510 (Feb 16, 2009)

Got a question for the experts I found a new holland hay crusher. i thought about using a sickle mower and cutting the hay then using the crusher to condition it the guy wants $175 for it and it works
let me know what you think 
thanks
alex


----------



## BCFENCE (Jul 26, 2008)

Dad used to run a conditoner behind the sickel bar mower, It was about 30 years ago and as far as i know it worked great, Its just a haybine or diskbine does the same thing but in one pass instead of two, I think their was someone one here awhile back that said they make an extra pass with their conditoner after they cut it with a diskbine. Anything to help dry it as long as you dont have leaf lose.
THOMAS


----------



## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

First question is how much ground are you mowing? Probably work great, but I think a decent mower-conditioner would save you some fuel and time since you would not have to make that second pass. I imagine if you watch some sales you may see some good mo-co deals out there. Then again if you are just starting and have a few acres, it may be just the ticket. The price seems decent if it is mechanically sound and the rollers are good. Good luck


----------



## farmboy9510 (Feb 16, 2009)

The only other question I have about the crusher is are they supposed to have some sort of pickup on them or how do they work. I have never seen one before.
thanks


----------



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

they just have a lowering handle on them. The rolls spin opposite one another and the bottom roll usually picks up the hay. I had an old NH411 discbine that had horrible rubber on the rolls. I found an old 404 conditioner and it worked til we were able to buy a new mower. I would recommend, mowing in the afternoon, next morning condition it and if you need to, Ted the hay out right after conditioning. It does help to soften the hay a lot, and it really does work nice if you do not have a lot of acreage. 25+ hp to run it. Some parts for it, I will tell you are just about impossible to find.


----------



## farmboy9510 (Feb 16, 2009)

If one had to replace a rubber roller on one of these machines how much would I be looking to spend just curious any idea?
thanks


----------



## IAhaymakr (Jun 4, 2008)

Replacing a roll on the 404 will pry be very expensive. Your idea is a good one though, they work very well. Neighbors still use one day after cutting with a 499 to recrimp and fluff the windrow. Cuts dry time in half for sure. I have used theirs and then bought a couple New Idea conditioners of my own with same results. Mine are for sale now as we have too many acres for them to be practical.


----------



## farmboy9510 (Feb 16, 2009)

IAhaymakr said:


> Replacing a roll on the 404 will pry be very expensive. Your idea is a good one though, they work very well. Neighbors still use one day after cutting with a 499 to recrimp and fluff the windrow. Cuts dry time in half for sure. I have used theirs and then bought a couple New Idea conditioners of my own with same results. Mine are for sale now as we have too many acres for them to be practical.


Where you located? How much you want for one


----------



## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

not sure if anyone else has heard of this before or not, but if so, please chime in. I read a while back where guys were using old 411's without the cutterhead on it, and a slight modification to the conditioning rolls to do the same thing as a crimper only at a much higher rate of speed. Anyone ever heard this before?


----------



## Rodney R (Jun 11, 2008)

I think that the whole process of running a crimper is a waste of time and fuel. If you have any rocks in your field, it'll throw them at you, and I heard stories about having to carry an axe on the tractor, so that when the rolls would wrap and plug, you could chop the hay out of them. The reason that conditioners were pu in haybines was so that you wouldn't have to pull the conditioner anymore..... And there was a VERY good reason that these things were backed in the fence rows. A goo set of conditioning rolls in the haybine will do just as much good as the crimper. If you wanna use another tool - buy a tedder.

Rodney


----------



## jr in va (Apr 15, 2015)

From the late 60s until 1978 we ran two tractors in the field almost every day.Front with 7' mower and the other pulling the 404.Worked good until we could afford a Haybine.till have mine for a backup.

If the rubber rolls came apart,I don't see why you couldn't weld 1/2" bar stock 1/4" thick at intervals the length of the machine.We had it done on the stripper roll on an 853 round baler.Worked great.


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

Just about every manufacturer built the equivalent of these machines back in the days before New Holland invented the HayBine in the mid 60's... New Holland themselves offered the 402 hay crusher (with a smooth steel upper drum running against a diamond-pattern grooved rubber lower roller) and the 404 hay crimper (steel on steel interlocking bar crimping rollers). They were designed to be pulled either in a separate operation, or directly behind the mower and tractor, with the sicklebar cutting the next pass to the side, and the crimper crimping the last pass directly behind the tractor and mower frame... (I'll attach some pics for the young bucks that ain't never seen how it was done in "the old days"...)

I picked up a 404 cheap about 15 years ago to run behind the Zweegers drum mower when I was growing hay grazer (Sorghum-sudan), as it gets pretty stemmy and big and hard to dry without crimping. Worked okay but I had to go REALLY slow due to the fact that the drum mowers gather the hay to the center between the drums, instead of laying it out flat like a sickle mower did, therefore it would tend to overload the machine in the center and often would "lock it up" with a wad and shear the shear bolt. (Why they didn't put a rachet clutch on the things I'll never know-- they're chain driven and so they use a dinky 1/4 inch shear bolt on the hub/sprocket on one end).

If I were going to use the thing regularly, I'd run it behind a sickle mower... Like I said, running in sorghum-sudan that was partially windrowed by the mower didn't work very well at all. Other crops, it might not be such an issue... even running it behind a disk mower that doesn't windrow the hay as much as the drum mowers do might work, but I never tried it since we don't have a disk mower.

A tedder could probably achieve as much good and be a lot easier to work with... and higher capacity...

Later and good luck! OL JR


----------



## jr in va (Apr 15, 2015)

Luke,remember the New Holland 450 mower with the rear PTO so you could mount a hitch and pull the 404 ? Is that a455 with the Farmall?


----------



## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

jr in va said:


> Luke,remember the New Holland 450 mower with the rear PTO so you could mount a hitch and pull the 404 ? Is that a455 with the Farmall?


Yep, I remember those... still quite a few around if you look, actually, depending on where you are I guess... They usually have a big old honkin' rounded shield over the PTO sticking out the back of the pulley to keep someone from getting wrapped up in it and pulled into the spinning shaft/pulley...

The one in the pic above isn't actually a NH cutter + 402/404... it's the IH equivalent with the 2 point "snap hitch"... I can tell by the little trailing wheel on the mower, and if you look at the crimper it's got the "angled round lid" cover on the gearbox turning the PTO 90 degrees to run the crimper... that's the IH equivalent of the 402/404 crushers/crimpers...

Remember just about EVERYBODY was selling those from about the late 50's through the mid-60's when New Holland came out with the original "Haybines" which combined the mower bar and crimper rolls right behind them into one machine, with a reel to keep everything moving from the cutterbar to the rubber crimper rolls. IH made their version, Deere had their version, Oliver had their version, AC, Massey, you name it... wasn't exactly rocket science to design a little pull type crimper that could either be pulled behind a tractor directly in a second operation, nor was it difficult to tweak a rear-mount mower to pull one... (and if you had a side-mount sicklebar mower, like on a Farmall Cub or Super C or 620 Deere or something, so much the better-- pull it right behind the mower tractor!) Up until that time, the pull type crimper/crusher was pretty much "the state of the art" until the Haybine design came out and took the market by storm... within a few years the Haybine was a runaway success, much better machine than the sicklebar mowers and pull type crimpers/crushers they replaced, and so everybody was eager to switch over, so it wasn't long before all the manufacturers "cloned" the Haybine design in their own colors to keep their share of the hay equipment market.

Not sure when the last crimper or crusher rolled off the line... probably early 70's would be my guess... by that time there were a ton of used ones around and little-no demand, and probably more than a few new unsold ones sitting on dealer lots as well... so they might have actually been out of production even sooner. I know somewhere around here I have some old New Holland books written in about that time frame (early 70's IIRC) that still showed them in "the back of the catalog" so to speak, for the "value minded" farmer...

I know I've seen a lot of other "makes" of the things, but don't get me to lyin' about the actual model numbers from Deere, IH, Oliver, etc... 

Later! OL JR


----------

