# anyone use a kicker?



## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

I just bought a JD 327 sq baler last Saturday and it has a kicker on the back. I didnt buy it for the kicker but since i got it home I am wondering how it works.

the guy I bought it from never used it so he could not tell me anything.

Mine has a long pole which reachs towards cab of tractor..the pole ayyaches to kicker there is a large dial which when rotated is numbers 1-8

i see a hydro cylinder on side which changes direction that kicker would launch bale

I see a safety lever on side of kicker, only know this as sticker says so

How does this launch, how often, and what does the numbers mean, lastly, when the baler is disconnected can it still launch I am a little uneasy working around the rear of it now?

thanks


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## Cozyacres (Jul 16, 2009)

middleTn said:


> I just bought a JD 327 sq baler last Saturday and it has a kicker on the back. I didnt buy it for the kicker but since i got it home I am wondering how it works.
> 
> the guy I bought it from never used it so he could not tell me anything.
> 
> ...


The long pole with numbers sets how far the bale will be thrown. You can also adjust the angle of the throw with the hydo cylinder to keep it in the wagon if you are going around a corner.
Anytime the baler is running the kicker could activate if the lever is tripped by you or the bale. When the baler PTO is not turning I don't think there is hydro pressure to activate.
MAKE SURE THE LOCK IS ON WHEN YOU ARE NEAR THE KICKER WITH THE BALER RUNNING. If it hits you it could kill you!
I suggest you get a manual for it, there are a lot of adjustments you need the book to get right.


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## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

ok thats helpls


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

middleTN, I used to run a kicker on our JD 336. They are really nice to use when they are working, but can be a pain when they aren't (like any other piece of equipment). It became standard practice on our farm that the only time the safety on the kicker was turned off was when we were baling hay, as soon as there was no hay going in the front of the baler, the safety was turned on PERIOD!

You may want to talk to your JD dealer and check, but some of the early model kickers had a problem where the sunshine could heat the hydraulic fluid in the kicker enough to build up a little pressure so it would kick without the baler running. I believe the newer models have some type of relief valve in them that prevents this.

As for how it works, the bale slides out of the bale chamber onto the pan. At the end of the pan should be a little trip that the bale pushes up against and this is what activates the kicker. The hydraulic cylinder connected to the kicker has a set of springs inside it which do most of the work of kicking the bale into the wagon. The adjustable hydraulic pressure is there to change how far the bale is kicked. Setting "1" is the lowest setting and "8" is the farthest. There is also a latch that is supposed to catch the pan when it resets after a throw and keep it in position as the next bale is pushed onto the pan. Sometimes this latch doesn't catch and the bale will push the pan out.

We bought our baler used, so I never had to do any adjustments to the kicker other than checking the oil level in the tank. A manual would be a good thing to have, but there is a separate manual for the kicker and the baler, so make sure you get both. Most importantly, take cozyacres' advice very seriously, these kickers have killed people who didn't bother to lock them out with the safety before working on them. If you have any other questions, just post them here. There are a lot of good advisors on this website that will help you with just about anything.


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## NDVA HAYMAN (Nov 24, 2009)

MiddleTN, Be very aware and careful around a kicker attachment on a baler. Like the poster said, they can kill you!!! Do not trust them even if thetractor is off. I have run both kinds, belt and pan type and have seen some freaky things happen on them. Mike


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## Hayboy1 (Jul 19, 2008)

I cannot AGREE more with whats already been said about the safety issue. Make it a habit, a rule, or whatever it takes to shut your PTO OFF before working on it. As far as operation, a lot of problems will be solved if your bales are decent and they are consistent in length. Buy the manual, I believe I paid $12 for mine off E-bay for a NH 75 pan style thrower, which I believe is identical to JD if not very similar.


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## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

thanks all.

I am really being careful around this kicker until I get it to release, with machine off and away.

I am hunting a manual tonight..Mine did not come with the rear guards/fencing looking sides or rear bar with trip lever on it..

I watched a couple you tube videos on the kickers and through those and your words I have a better understanding as to how it operates...

I am going to built the frame which will outline the safety guards this weekend, I just need a couple of measurements if someone can help me out..

from the mounting holes on kicker, where the tube fram will plug in, the new tube will run away from the baler, towards the trailer being towed behind, where it makes a turn (90) what is that distance? (from mounting hole to turn)

I can tell the width as I am just figuring mounting hole left to the one on the right

and how far back, from pan, is the cross member which the trip lever sits on. this is the lever which some how tells the kicker to throw the bale.

lastly I see the trip lever in the videos no problem, but WHERE and HoW DOES IT CONNECT TO ON KICKER?

I looked at my serial numbers it starts with EO 30, so I gues mine is a model 30?

thanks guys


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## stan223 (Feb 16, 2011)

i had a belt thrower on a new holland baler sold it this spring.
i put up 25k bales with it last summer it works i guess but almost all the bales were deformed once they got unloaded. the crew did not like unloading them cause they were a tangled mess. u will hate corners and when they bales just tumble off the back of the wagon, even after 20k bales. it was nice cause i could bale faster than with 2 guys on wagon, problem was u can still only unload so fast. we were only able to unload about 1800 bales in a day and i could bale 2500 bales. on a wagon my guys could fit 225 bales stacked the kicker could only fit about 160.

i sold it this spring it was not right for me. if u only plan to put up maybe 8 to 10 thousand bales it will prolly be a wonderful thing to have


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

A thrower and bale wagons require some tweaking and is something you have to get used to unloading. We had all the ten and twelve ton running gears left over from placing tandem axle 13 ton running gears under our silage wagons so built hay wagons that would hold around 350 stacked, 250-275 when used as thrower wagons later on.

I almost always unloaded and once a person got used to it I could unload thrower wagons almost as fast as stacked hay. A person needs to shorten the bales up a bit and make a solid fifty pound bale. The shorter bales bales don't mishapen near as much and are easier to unload. Another trick was to run the thrower just fast enough to fill the middle of the wagon then speed it up a touch so the bales would tumble down the back of the stack to fill the rear of the wagon. We used thrower wagons for over 10 years, probably closer to 15 years and liek I pointed out, once you get used to em they worked great for our situation. Grapples and accumalators would not have worked for us as all the small squaes were stacked in loft's in several rented barns.


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## Josh in WNY (Sep 7, 2010)

MiddelTn, I'll try and get the measurements for you tonight. I have one of those guards off of my baler right now, so it should be pretty easy to get the measurements. The trip lever connects to a rod that runs up to the valve on the kicker and is part of the cage that you are building.

Stan223, mlappin covered a lot of the issues getting used to using a kicker or thrower, but my father and I found that the pan kickers were better able to fill a wagon if a pile of bales was built up in the middle. I think this is because the pan kickers seem to toss the bales a little higher into the air than the belt throwers, allowing them to clear a pile of bales in the middle and fill the back of the wagon. Dealing with corners was always a fun trick to learn, but we have the H&S kicker wagons that flare out at the top and that helps quite a bit.

If I am stacking a wagon, I prefer the pan kicker because it tends to send less chaff in the air. The best way we found for stacking our wagons was to start at the back with the kicker set to 7 or 8 and work our way forward stacking three layers deep. By the time you get up to the front of the wagon, the kicker has been backed down to 4 or 5. Then you crank the kicker back up and start stacking at the back of the wagon again and put in your last 3 or 4 layers. We were getting about 210 to 220 bales stacked on a 8x18 foot wagon.


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## middleTn (Nov 11, 2009)

that would be awesome if you can get some dimensions...

i have the pan style and it looks interesting..but i know in order to just use it, i need to build this guard and trigger assemble..

i saw one for sale for 175.00 plus shipping...ouch...i know i can build one cheaper..

i will look for where it attaches as you described...

thanks


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## dennisgorges (Aug 31, 2009)

i really like running a wagon behind the baler and stacking them with a grapple at the barn....do you happen to have a picture of a 350 bale wagon....did you reinforce the trailer hitch on the baler ?? I really need to get a few of them bigger wagons built would be nice to have bales on wheels ready for a truck !!! the current smaller trailers we are using are maxed out at 100 bales i have an 8 bale grapple that i can stack with and just usually run the rail bail down the side when stacking trailers and have one of the kids arrange the odd ones into a grab for the grapple when we unload works out very well for us just need bigger wagons and have always wanted to try a big tandem trailer do you run 11L 15 tires or bigger on them ??


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Had to replace the pipe on the back of the baler a few times until we found a piece of pipe that would slide inside the other so then we had a double walled pipe and that was the end of hitch problems. Another trick is if you have some rough spots in the field bale those with a empty wagon then goto a smoother part of the field to finish loading the wagon.

I don't have any pictures of those wagons. We used 12 ton gears that came from under our silage wagons and left a 3-4 foot over hang at the front and 5 foot at the rear so the reaches didn't need to be so long. We had some douglas fir floor joists that came out of a old school, these were actually 3"x12" and we bolted two of them together for each sill. We also placed four braces between the sills to keep em from rolling over. The braces were jsut a piece of native 2x12 with angle iron brackets on each end. Then we used 2x10's for the cross boards and these were 10 foot long so the wagon ended up being 10 foot wide. This allowed bales to be stacked end to end three wide. The overall length on the wagons was 22' if I remember correctly.

We placed plastic leftover from the chute tube in the silo's or even plastic from a agbag to cover the joists before placing the floor on. These days if I was building any new wagons I think I would use some Ice and Water block for a roof. Supposedly that water block will seal around your screws/nails/lag bolts where with plastic you just have a hole in it where the fastener passes thru. Another good trick as well is to take a piece of 3"x6"x18" angle iron and place the long side of it on bottom of the sills so all the weight of the load is spread out over more area where the sill sits on the running gear frame.

Usually ran 12Lx15 8 ply's on the hay wagons on the rears and if we were short we weren't afraid to use a 11Lx15 on the front in a pinch. The 11L's would take the load on the rear as well, but the 12L's seemed to last longer.


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## dennisgorges (Aug 31, 2009)

thank you very much for the information....were those running gears tandem in the back ? how high did you generally stack the wagons ? how did they do as far as flexing when going thru ditches etc. the stringers where bolted directly to the frame ?? Im really excited to get a few built as i can use them for large rounds or 3x3 in the future if i go that route !!! the only thing keeping me from doing more acres is the lack of trailers....i do have a pop-up to load from the ground but i work full time as an engineer and dont like them sitting out all day while i work it is best to just get them on the trailer right away and tarped or backed in the shed....not a lot of silage wagons left in my area......i need to find one and at least have it for a pattern to weld up a couple i have access to steel I beams and was considering maybe expanded metal floor or the open mesh type steel kinda like you use on a big BBQ grill did you use a rack in the back ? most all of my small trailers have racks? again,thank you for the information


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## Haymike56 (May 3, 2010)

I built one with an expanded metal deck out of an old house trailer frame. I used the two axiles with springs and added a 3x3 square tube to beef up the frame tubes. Found a wrecked running gear at an auction and welded the steering axile under the frame. I think it is 26' long with a back rack and I can easily get 200 bales on with the grabber.


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## ford4x4s (Apr 4, 2011)

i have one on my nh 316. grease grease grease! lots of moving parts relying on split second timing, if anything drags it will mess up. also everything needs to be adjusted just right. ive spent hours trying to get it adjusted right. as far as safety, DANGER DANGER DANGER! it scares the hell out of me. if i have to get in cage pto is off, tractor off WAIT TILL FLYWHEEL STOPS! i even hit the manual trip lever. and set the lockout lever. another thing i am fearful of is the guy on the wagon. sometimes you get a helpy helperton and they see a jam and jump of the wagon and head for kicker..NO! also, when they are stacking the front of the wagon im afraid of them falling off the wagon (like if you pull the ta back and they lose their balance) and fall into the basket. other than all that it wasnt bad, doesnt throw as much chaff as belts. i have belts on my 570 and will stay with belts simply for safety reasons.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

The hay wagons were single axle 12 ton gears, all the tandem gears we had were 13 ton and they went under the silage wagons. Didn't have any ditches to speak of, we always had good smooth drives going into the hay fields to make it easier on the silage wagons as well. Would stack the bottom three layers clear to the front then start again in the back with another four layers.


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## dennisgorges (Aug 31, 2009)

thank you so much for all the help it sounds like you where using a kicker in order to get three layers stacked all the way to the front then another four sounds like its much easier than the old drag and stack i dont use a cage on my wagons just flat deck with a back rack i need to find an old kicker and try it we usually bale around 70 lb bales that would suck getting nailed with the bale


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