# need help with older side delivery rake choices



## opcruzer (May 7, 2016)

We are buying 23 acres of pasture land (around the wife's new dream home) and I want to put up small squares to help pay the mortgage and get into the hay business as a hobby to start with. I am having to buy all of the equipment to start off (except tractors which are borrowed) and with paying too much for her house I am trying to acquire equipment on a budget. In looking at used side delivery rakes in this area (SE South Dakota) you can find a few different ones and am looking for the good and the bad. Using the 256/258 New Holland as the standard (which still bring $1,750-3,000 in this area) what compares to what else we can find,

JD 896 and various other older (640,660,670,671)

NH 56 (a few here and there)

New Idea various models all older

And then a few odd balls (oliver, allis, and the like that would be hard to find parts for)

I guess my question comes down to the new idea and older models bring $1,000-$1,500 and the nicer JD and NH ones can bring $2,500-$2,750 and with dealers close for each is it worth it and are they really that much better.

Thanks,


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

For parts availability, I'd stick with NH or JD for the most part. That said, you really shouldn't need many parts other than teeth if you buy an odd duck in good shape. Teeth are available for most anything. It may come down to your level of comfort in owning a rake that is hard to find parts for vs simply trying to find a good deal on one of the more popular brands. Keep in mind, the oddballs aren't just going to be hard to find new parts for but it will be difficult to even find used parts in many cases. Salvage yards aren't very excited about storing equipment that is obsolete and nobody ever inquires about.


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## Tater Salad (Jan 31, 2016)

For that amount of acreage go to agrisupply.com...you can get a 5 wheel for $900 brand new....I still use my GrandFathers Vicon Acrobat on my small fields..You can't beat the wheel rakes for alfalfa if you know how to properly use them...just a note , I get new tines and bearings out of Madison Wi for that 1947 rake......food for thought......Tater


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

If you're set on a bar rake, be patient. I got a super 55 thrown in with another purchase. It needed the gear box cleaned up and tires but it works. I've got a little over $150 in it and that includes hauling it home. Start looking for other things like the mower and baler first and keep your eyes open when you go to look. You might find a reasonable deal hiding in the weeds.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Although JD side delivery rakes don't have as good reputation as NH rakes I would prefer JD rake over a 3 pt wheel rake. A couple yrs back I sold a JD 670 with dolly wheels for $900 that was a decent rake.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

Also I would suggest something similar to a new holland 57 or whatever the newer equivalent is. This is a 3 point mounted, pto drive rake. The 3point makes it easier to position in tight quarters and the PTO drive means you can maintain a constant basket speed regardless of your ground speed. I wish mine was a 57 but for the price I can't complain.


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## opcruzer (May 7, 2016)

I am not opposed to a wheel rake or even a rotary rake, but I have access to an old farmall H and a 656 so I have no 3pt yet. I plan to buy something before winter with a cab and loader.

I am headed to a big auction on Wednesday and they have a couple JD balers (24t and 336's) and a NH 311 and assorted rakes and racks. Since I only plan to put up the grass on this property I am hoping to find an old swather (pull type or self) or moco.

The company I work for sells and erects hoop buildings so I have that part covered also.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

Unless the 24T is in excellent shape, I would concentrate my efforts toward the 336 and 311. The 24T can make bales but the difference in speed is pretty drastic. I'm not sure how much older the 24T is then the 311 or 336 but it's several years. I'm sure TX Jim can give that info. He's very knowledgeable on the JD stuff.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

thendrix said:


> Also I would suggest something similar to a new holland 57 or whatever the newer equivalent is. This is a 3 point mounted, pto drive rake. The 3point makes it easier to position in tight quarters and the PTO drive means you can maintain a constant basket speed regardless of your ground speed. I wish mine was a 57 but for the price I can't complain.


IMHO 3 pt rakes don't offer the ability to rake around corners on odd shaped fields similar to the towed models & 3 pt rakes don't follow the contour of the ground as well as towed rakes.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

thendrix said:


> . I'm not sure how much older the 24T is then the 311 or 336 but it's several years. I'm sure TX Jim can give that info. He's very knowledgeable on the JD stuff.


The model 336 could possibly be only 1 yr younger than a model 24 as 336 replaced 24.


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## thendrix (May 14, 2015)

Tx Jim said:


> IMHO 3 pt rakes don't offer the ability to rake around corners on odd shaped fields similar to the towed models & 3 pt rakes don't follow the contour of the ground as well as towed rakes.


I guess it depends on the lay of the land as to which would be preferred


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## bool (Mar 14, 2016)

I have owned my 57 for over 30 years and it has its advantages when you need to lift it out of trouble a lot in small or odd shaped fields. The kind of rake you have is less important than how carefully you drive it. No matter what kind of rake you use you need to be mindful of the baler operator and try to keep the windrows as smooth and even as possible, even if it means missing a bit of hay. To me the biggest problem with it is the light main frame and small wheels get a hard time in rough fields.

Roger


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## opcruzer (May 7, 2016)

Thanks again for all of the comments


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## bulldogger (May 31, 2015)

I have a NH 256 rake it has served me well for 10 years. I use a 3 pt attachment with a receiver hitch to pull it with. That allows me to raise the lift and get the rake teeth off the ground when needed. It also moves the rake back from tractor and I can turn it 180 degrees and keep the windrow together. Check the tongues of the rakes out good because there are a lot with broke and welded tongues because they were used with a hitch bar between the 3 pt lift arms and the bar does not have enough clearance to make sharp turns and breaks the tongues. That being said I and looking for a v rake now. They are so much faster especially if the hay is thin.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

bulldogger said:


> I have a NH 256 rake it has served me well for 10 years. I use a 3 pt attachment with a receiver hitch to pull it with. That allows me to raise the lift and get the rake teeth off the ground when needed. It also moves the rake back from tractor and I can turn it 180 degrees and keep the windrow together. Check the tongues of the rakes out good because there are a lot with broke and welded tongues because they were used with a hitch bar between the 3 pt lift arms and the bar does not have enough clearance to make sharp turns and breaks the tongues. That being said I and looking for a v rake now. They are so much faster especially if the hay is thin.


Our old 256 has had the tongue tied into a pretzel a few times when people borrowed it. It's never going to be perfectly straight again but it doesn't affect the functionality at all.


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## bjr (Jan 24, 2013)

Post #3 had a good suggestion Agri-Supply. I started out with a old IH #5 rake and found it to rope the hay (didn't dry very fast) and was a really obnoxious thing to pull down a county road or manuever in around the sprinkler risers and don't even think about backing up. I finally broke down and bought the 3 pt. Morra 280 rotary rake from Agri-supply and just love the thing. I previously bought a 3 pt SFI 2555 Drum mower and the last purchase was a Hesston 4550 inline baler which replaced a old NH269 offset baler (again, hard pull down narrow county roads and to manuever in small fields with irrigation riser pipes). I'm happy with my purchases as I can come home from my day job and hook and Go-N-Blow, mowing, raking and baling. Just some insights in my start-up custom haying operation. bjr


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## bulldogger (May 31, 2015)

8350HiTech said:


> Our old 256 has had the tongue tied into a pretzel a few times when people borrowed it. It's never going to be perfectly straight again but it doesn't affect the functionality at all.


I agree they can be fixed and still work fine just trying to give some things to look out for. I plan to keep mine even after I buy a v rake. some of our fields are small with a few places a v rake would not fit between.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

thendrix said:


> Also I would suggest something similar to a new holland 57 or whatever the newer equivalent is. This is a 3 point mounted, pto drive rake. The 3point makes it easier to position in tight quarters and the PTO drive means you can maintain a constant basket speed regardless of your ground speed. I wish mine was a 57 but for the price I can't complain.


Well, not to argue, but to present a counterpoint, I'd recommend the opposite.

I had a 57 3-pt. rake for awhile-- couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Not only is it harder to hook up to, requiring not only hitching up the lift arms and top link, but then you have to wrestle with the PTO shaft as well, and every one I've ever seen has a metal shield on it and those are a pain. Instead of the 2 15 inch traction tires, you have 2 little "crazy wheels" that are basically glorified wheelbarrow tires. Invariably I'd have to air them up EVERY TIME I went to the field to get the rake to run right, and they were flat half the time. I've had the 15 inch traction tires on the drawn rakes go flat maybe twice in about the last 30 years!

I thought the same thing-- 3 point mounted, close coupled, PTO drive so can gear down in heavy hay and keep the RPM's up and move hay, better around obstacles or weird shaped fields, etc. Didn't really turn out that way in actuality. The 57 has a big metal shield to cover the drive belt and keep hay out of it right in front of the basket, which basically means if I was trying to roll a bigger windrow, it'd end up plugging or slowing the hay down enough to make "wads" now and then, which really screws up the baling consistency. Because the rake is "directly attached" to the back of the tractor, in a turn, the rake swings the opposite way. If you rake several passes into a single windrow, or are raking around a lot of obstacles or weirdly shaped fields, the windrows QUICKLY become "skewed" because of this. In a RH turn, the rake swings to the LEFT, which makes the windrow "arc out" into an ever-widening curve. In a LH turn, the rake swings to the RIGHT, which basically swings the rake away from the swath and the windrow. Rake a square or rectangular field, and you invariably get "bell shaped corners" that only get worse as you go along! A drawn rake will always turn slightly INSIDE the turn in the same direction that the tractor turns, because it's being pulled like a trailer, COMPLETELY OPPOSITE the mounted rakes. In a RH turn, the rake turns a bit to the inside of the turn, to the RIGHT. In a LH turn, the rake turns slightly inside the turn to the LEFT. This "evens out" the windrow as you go around obstacles or weirdly shaped fields, making combining passes MUCH easier. I found that basically backing into corners or other "irregular" areas of the field as easy with the drawn rake as the mounted one, and the PTO drive and "speed difference" between the basket and ground speed versus a ground driven rake to be unimportant, really.

Another thing I didn't like about the mounted rake was, the flotation is virtually NIL. Yes, it has a pair of little crazy wheels running right behind the basket, but then again, everything after the NH 55 straight-axle rake has put both wheels right behind the basket, and even when we ran an old #55 it really wasn't any big deal that the RH wheel was 3-4 feet behind the lead end of the basket... The 56, with the offset wheels, will rake a *little* cleaner, but not enough to make much difference in most ground conditions. You ever cross a ditch or rake rough or rolling ground, you'll cuss a mounted rake-- where a drawn rake, with the basket hanging on a suspension by spring-loaded bellcranks, when the tractor or rake tires drop in a low spot or hole, the rake tines will hit the ground but shove the basket up thanks to the suspension springs. Not so on the mounted rake-- you'll find yourself with a bent or busted tine half the time, and a LOT more dirt and crud in the windrow. I can't begin to count how many times I had to stop and get off, grab a crescent wrench, and use the ring end of the handle to bend a tine back into shape after hitting a hard high spot or the little tires dropping into a hole, tractor track, or deep spot in a ditch. Lost a lot of tines too, either broke off (usually after bending them back-- next time they hit something hard, they bust rather than bend) or the bolt sheared off the bar. I'd say that the mounted rake probably busted 5X as many teeth as the drawn rakes have over the years. (I bought a 258 at a sale and a double hitch and pull it and the 256 that replaced the 57, and I quickly learned that rubber tined teeth also suck, IMHO. It had factory rubber tines on the 258, OLD as it was, but I was losing quite a few because the rubber was so old. I tried replacing them with TSC rubber teeth and found out those things are no good NEW, as I was losing as many of the new replacements as I was the old rubber teeth that were on it, so I started replacing them with the spring steel coil teeth and now that it's about 3/4 steel and 1/4 rubber, with most of those being NH ORIGINAL rubber teeth from the factory, I rarely lose a tooth on the rake anymore, rubber or steel. The all-steel 256 hardly never looses a tooth.

We kept the 57 for several years, but I was happy to trade it off for a new 256 as soon as possible, and wasn't one bit sorry to see it head down the road!

IMHO, a drawn rake is TWICE AS GOOD a rake as a mounted rake.

Later! OL J R


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## rockyridgefarm (Feb 17, 2015)

I have a 258 straight hitch bought 5 years ago for $500, a 260 dolly wheel bought last fall for $1200, and a 660 dolly wheel rake bought last summer for $950. I have three because I also have a gooseneck hitch to pull two rakes. I can rake 2 single windrows with the left hand rakes, or a double windrow with a left hand and right hand rake. 260 is a right hand rake, btw. The gooseneck hitch was a consignment sale buy for $750.

Make sure you get a 5 bar rake versus a 4 bar. I'd avoid any of the older john deere rakes. They weren't very good until the 660 came out. I had an 894 and it was terrible and I've also heard the 640s were built too light on the front end. Plus, they're likely to be a 4 bar rake.

Dolly wheels are a plus, but a non-dolly wheel shouldn't be a deal breaker. The dolly wheel rakes follow the lay of the land better, but they're nearly impossible to back up if you get into trouble. ( especially on a gooseneck hitch...)

As others have said, check the driveline components. I've spent hundreds of dollars on driveline components on the two New Holland rakes. U-joints aren't expensive or terribly hard to replace, but they can be very aggravating. A C-clamp is your friend when installing them. Driveshafts have some cost to them - $130 aftermarket. My 258 was badly bent up when I bought it 5 years ago. I spent a lot of time straightening the basket loops and the frame. The shaft was so loose, it could almost turn inside itself. My 260 has seen a lot of acres and neglect, but not abuse. I've replaced some u-joints and the dogs in the hubs. I've replaced many tines on both. I switched the 258 back to steel tines. It was half rubber and half steel when I bought it. The rubber teeth were about rotted off it. The 660 was in very good shape versus the New Hollands, just some steel tines. What I'm trying to say is, a cheap rake that needs work can get a lot more expensive than a good rake ready to go.

I just discovered an Amish dealer in Willow Street, PA where I'm now buying parts for a fair bit less than the New Holland Dealer.

I know a guy who has a new idea rake, and he doesn't like the single crank height adjustment. He says it tends to dig on one side or the other. Also, supposedly some Gehl rakes are John deere 660s painted red. Might get a good rake with good parts availability cheaper because others don't know.


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## atgreene (May 19, 2013)

I have a 640 & 660 JD, the knuckles on the end of each parralel bar are expensive and the gear boxes can be problematic. I like the design of the ih and nh better when it comes to maintenance.


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

Grandpa bought a New idea bar rake, uncle still has it. With that single height crank the only tractor it does a decent job of picking up along the whole width and not gauging or leaving crop behind is the 8N Ford great grandpa bought new in 1952. Unless you have an old similar Ford I'd stay away from the New idea rakes.


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## SwingOak (May 19, 2014)

Get a NH 256 if you want a side delivery rake. You can get every single part for it aftermarket from Joe's Machinery LLC in PA for about half the cost of the NH OEM part. I bought my rake for $700 as an add-on when I bought some other equipment, and replaced every part in the driveline including main shaft and u-joints, put new bearings in the hubs, and new tires all for under $600. It's worth every bit of $3K now, that's the going price for a used 256 here. It works great, but there's a reason people call it a rope-a-bar rake. That's why I just bought a used Kuhn rotary rake - but I'm keeping the 256 as a backup!


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