IHC 46 Baler - Trip Rod or Arm Problem

I"ve got an IHC 46 Twine baler and the trip arm keeps getting caught in the out position so that the little idler wheel doesn"t make contact with the knotter drive gear. When this happens, the trip arm needs to be pushed in by hand (by pushing on the trip arm). The trip rod also doesn"t always seem to have enough time to fully reset after the rod trips. As a result of all this, sometimes the bales will come out 6 feet long, sometimes normal, and other times we"ll have little baby bales.

This happens somewhat frequently but sometimes we"ll get 5 or 6 bales where the trip rod travels through its course just fine.

What me and my dad have noticed is that on the end of the trip rod, there"s the C shape piece with a roll pin through it which contacts the sheave... it seems like it was rewelded by someone. Now when the trip rod comes up as the baler works, that pin puts a lot of pressure on the sheave at about 8"oclock and stays there for a bit. After a short time, the pressure gets too great and the trip rod pops from 8"oclock to about 11"oclock. It then goes on to trip the bale. Is that normal? It seems somewhat erratic to me as sometimes the pin will get stuck at 8"oclock on the sheave and the trip rod needs to be forced past that by hand.

Also, we found a kink in the knotter shaft brake rotor. We ground the kink out but noticed the rotor was fairly warped. Would a warped rotor cause this kind of problem?

We"re gonna be baling some more tonight so I was going to ride on back of the baler and try to figure out more. If anyone has any info on what might be the problem, let me know.

Thanks a bunch.

I just checked my 46 and the arm easily moves past where the roll pin engages the wheel. Try turning the measuring gizmo by hand and you should feel little resistance. You mentioned the arm had been welded. On my arm the centre to centre distance between the cam roller and the roll pin is 17-13/16.

Hope this helps. They are a good old baler.

The sheave is clean and the measuring wheel seems to go along just fine as the bales progress. I picked up some 1/4 inch bolts to replace the 5/16 bolts that hold the measuring wheel assembly to the chute. I'm hoping this will give me some room to adjust for clearance of the roll pin to the sheave since I suspect my measurement of the rollpin-to-camroller to be less than what you measured since the trip rod was rewelded and because my roll pin doesn't clear the sheave without yanking up on the trip rod.

Thanks again. I'll repost with my progress.