“Whatcha doin’ Grandpa?”
“Feeding corn to the steers.”
“Why?”
“To make more manure.”
“Why?”
“To fertilize the fields.”
“Why?”
“To grow more corn.”
“Why?”
“To have corn to feed to the steers.”
Sometimes we need to think like the above 3-year-old.
A fellow I knew was a fieldman/salesman for a twine string company, mainly dealing with twine for hay balers. He started when baling wire was almost universal use to hold baled hay and straw together. Sisal twine was the competing product, and of course the knotters for the twine were different from the part that fastened the baling wire together. When polypropylene baler twine came into the picture, it rapidly became the alternative to baling wire that sisal twine had never been.
As this fellow went about selling the plastic twine, he started hauling with him in his pickup a complete drop-in knotter assembly for the predominant brand of heavy hay balers. He said it made him many sales when he could help making the knotter swap without waiting for parts and pieces and hoping the rancher or the dealer’s helpers got it right.
He also had made a one-twine knotter anchored to his truck so he could show his customers how that in-the-blink-of-an-eye movement resulted in a knot robust enough to hold a 160-pound bale of hay. It turned slowly and showed the needle bringing the twine from the ball of twine through the knotter assembly, picking up the held end of the twine and, with the two strands in place, the bill hook would open, grab both strands, pull it around making a loop it was pulled through, and then having the knife cut the twine and the wiper pushing the now completed knot off the bill hook, tightening into a nice compact knot.
With the current internet and YouTube, it isn’t difficult to see the knot being tied in slow motion. Being able to see what each part does answers the many “whys” involved when troubleshooting knotters that don’t.
With wear and running in dirty, dusty conditions where lubricant would only make things worse, there’s going to be metal-to-metal wear, and things get interesting. Unless a part breaks, missing ties is the result of a number of things wearing to an out-of-adjustment condition. Replacing worn bill hooks and the cam gear that turns them and other parts will restore acceptable function, but eventually it’s time for a new knotter. Understanding the whys will allow a grower to get more time out of a set of knotters running in the dirt.
Other useful 'whys'
Mistakes made due to not having all the information are maddening. Like having a helper be afraid to tell that he’d put diesel in a gasoline tractor. That beast isn’t going to run right until it has the correct fuel.
When a computer-generated trouble code doesn’t make sense, it’s time to ask some questions. The first is to ask: What does the computer think is there and adequate as a default? Computers have improved dramatically over the years, to the point that some machines and vehicles supposedly are totally computer-controlled. Most diagnostics will show the fuel pressure. Some may tell you low fuel pressure is because you have a plugged fuel filter. Some will not.
Some time back, I got lazy and the fuel filter on my 2006 diesel pickup hadn’t been changed. On a trip, just topping a long uphill pull, it suddenly started running rough, losing power, blowing black smoke with numerous warning lights coming on in the dash. Everything downstream from the high-pressure fuel pump (that maintains the super-high rail pressure that makes the injectors work right) was throwing a code. Wiring harness, fuel injectors, manifold pressure, the works.
Here’s what happened. Without adequate fuel, the high-pressure fuel pump could not provide the high pressure necessary for the injectors. This affected the combustion in the cylinders as being inadequate. So the computer opened the injectors to flow more fuel. That fuel was low pressure and slobbered into the cylinders and did not ignite as it would with a high-pressure spray, causing clouds of black smoke from unburned fuel. Then it threw the code for the wiring harness because the computer had no way of seeing that low pressure was the issue and not an electrical issue of the injectors not getting the signal to function properly.
The new fuel filter I dug out from behind the back seat fixed it all.
When something keeps breaking, rather than just patching it again, it’s a good idea to look carefully at the machine and brainstorm why it’s breaking.
An arm that pushed accumulated hay bales over was cracking. Even reinforcing the area of the crack didn’t hold. I had been paying attention to the pushing, or work movement. Finally, I noticed that arm when the machine had been shut down long enough for the hydraulic oil to seep back and let everything “relax.” The ram that moved it was not all the way retracted, but the bump stop for the home position was in tight contact. When the machine was running, the ram was fully retracted. The arm was being tweaked every cycle, not the work stroke but the home position. The simple cure was a stop spacer so the ram could not retract fully, stopping the twisting pressure on the arm, which was causing the welds to crack.
A final why
The complaint made was that the car would spin out with any movement to steer it on the road. The weather had been zero at night rising to 31 or so in the daytime. The sun shining on the icy pavement let the surface thaw enough for vehicles driving on it to throw moisture and slush up into the fender wells. All the vehicles were packing a couple hundred pounds of ice.
On the vehicle in question (an AMC Eagle), the ice pack in the front fenders was so large that when the front tires went to turn, they would rub on the accumulated ice and stop turning, resulting in the vehicle wanting to drive in a circle. A couple of good kicks with size 13s cured the problem.
