Get prepared with a pre-season checklist
Hay and Silage season is nearly here again. Now is the time to take advantage of the rainy days to dust off your haying equipment and prevent costly downtime in the harvest. Compiling a pre-season checklist is a great way to ensure you won’t be caught unprepared.
Rob Hender – Leading Hand Service Technician – TTMI Trafalgar branch recommends completing these checks to make sure you minimise issues during harvest. Rob firmly believes that safety is always first and you need to check that all the PTO covers are in place and covers for any moving parts are in place and fitted correctly.
Inspect, lubricate, and service all power-driven areas such as belts, bearings, chains, and gears. Set tension on belts and chains. On disc mowers, replace knives and rotate or replace worn turtles over the knives. Conditioning rollers are often overlooked. Look for uneven wear and adjust the roll gap, roll timing, and roll pressure for your
crop.
On round balers, inspect belts, chains, and slats or rollers frequently for wear. Trim frayed edges and repair belts as needed to maintain uniform tension. When not in use, keep belts clean and release belt tension. Pick-up teeth on balers and on rakes are frequently broken or bent. Replace defective teeth and adjust height if necessary.
While your equipment has been parked up over winter, there is risk of it becoming a nesting place for rats and mice. Check over electrical connections
and hoses for chew marks and remove any nesting material. Check over the lights, reflectors, and decals before taking machinery out on the road.
Also, be sure you have replacement parts on hand for frequently broken or replaced items. Are you stocked up on net wrap, silage film, shear pins, and spare tines for tedders, rakes and balers? TTMI Parts Department can help get you sorted for Hay and Silage season.
And most important of all, review your owner’s manual to brush up on operation before the season begins
and identify recommended maintenance procedures and proper settings.
Even if you typically take a do-it-yourself approach to equipment maintenance, TTMI are available to provide expert workshop and field service and support when you need it, with after hours on-call parts and service available throughout the harvest season.
TTMI would like to wish everyone a safe and successful harvest season. Call them today to find out how they can help with your harvest season. www.ttmi.com.au