Engine on old balers or combines?

[John R in Wisconsin]

Hello -

I have run across a Wisconsin TJD engine that has been stored inside, but not run for a long time. Seems like it could be an
interesting restoration project.

Is this the engine that I always heard about being used on balers and some combines, and being very difficult to start when hot?

Do these engines have any practical use nowadays, or have a value for collectors? See photo.

 

[Leroy]

Yes one model of them an of the hard starting was just lack of maintaince. Air cooled and dirt, chaf would get sucked into the air housing over the head and block plugging the air vents in the block and head so no air could get thru there to cool things. That made the engine so hot it was like running a water cooled engine with it boiling over all the time. Over heat and ruin them, That engine is what we had on the New Holland 66 baler and in dirty dusty conditions you had to take the cowling off every day and blow things out clean then no starting problems. We ran ours enough that the block was bored and when we got rid of the baler it was needing it again. But that is not the reason we got rid of that baler but got one with a thrower. The other starting problen was the diaphran in the fuell pimp if the engine was equiped wirh one but only engins with a fuel tank mounted l0w below engine had them. We would carry an extra diaphram in baler tool box all the time. I have no idea what the market now would be for them. For a time they were used on carnival rides as well and not being out in all the field dirt did not have that starting problem. We had to hand crank ours with a flywheel mounted to baler drive pully on the crankshast. Ours had a mag, that one has distributor and starter we did not have,

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

I'm thinking the ones used on balers and such were a V4. Grandpa's Owatonna swather had a 4-cylinder Wisconsin.

I'm sure they have some value to collectors, but you're not going to get rich off it. They're cost-prohibitive to ship. Your best bet is if you have some kind of antique engine show in your area, to take it there and set it out with a for sale sign and your phone number on it.

There's a forum site called "smokstak" that would be much better versed on this. They have an entire area dedicated to Wisconsin engines.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

They were use on balers, also the V4s on larger ones. TJD and THD are pretty much interchangeable but the J fires 180 deg apart and the H pistons run together and fire on alternate revolutions. I have an old TFD as well. Same but lower HP rating.

 

[Duner Wi]

Mike (NEOhio), Does the H cyl 2 fire 90 degrees
after cyl 1. Thanks

 

[rrlund]

Dad had a New Holland 77 with one on it. He used to carry a belt in the twine box so if he killed it, he could unhook, turn the tractor around and belt up to the belt pulley on the tractor to restart it.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

No, both pistons work side by side. #1 fires then #2 on the next revolution, 360 degrees apart.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

The mag for the H fires both spark plugs at the same time on every revolution.

 

[Leroy]

The bigger balers were the 4 cylinder while the smaller balers were the 2
cylinder,

 

[mschwartz]

Electric start would make that a nice upgrade for a lot of balers. Most came equipped only with a short hand crank.

 

[PJH]

I don't know a thing about those old baler engines, but I know that I have eaten many meals while listening to the baler engine running outside while we ate. Afraid to shut it off because it was not a good hot starter. Once you got it running, it ran until the hay got too tough to bale. Some good memories - some not so good. I particularly remember one old Deere baler that whipped everybody on the hay crew. We finally got it running, but it was nearly dark. I think if we had just went off and left it to cool down we would have been back baling quicker. We cranked it enough to keep it hot. Pulled it with an A John Deere. I didn't understand why the farmer didn't convert it to PTO drive.

 

[DR. EVIL]

Neighbor had an IH #55T twine baler, with IH C-113 4 cyl water cooled engine, It could be a pain to start occasionally, but we seldom shut it off, only when we were done baling for the day.
Dad had a IH #50-T baler with a Continental engine that was really fussy about starting when hot. Think it was something like 116 cubic inches. Dad parted out an IH # 62 pull type combine, it had the same Continental engine as the 50T baler, actually he had two, one to combine with while the other combine cooled off enough to start. They both got replaced with a Deere #25 and a few years later the 25 was replaced with a 30, both Deere's were pto driven.
Guy in town bought the engine and all the tin work and radiator from the one #62 combine to power his home-made Super Garden Tractor to mow his large yard with. It ran reliably for years. It had plenty of time to cool off between mowings.

 

[chcase]

My dad had a T50 baler with the continental and he always shut off the gas before shutting down the engine. By doing that I had no trouble starting it hot. Ours went to scrap and engine sold to someone needing it. I think the V4 Wisconsins were the most troubled engines

 

[Leroy]

Reason for not converting is NO LPTO on tractor. With engine you could slow down or stop movement when finding a big slug and work that slug thru, with the PTO you would have to stop tractor and baler and get off tractor and pull slug apart and then get back on tractor and hope you has a slow enough gear to take the slug. Or if the row of hay was small you had to drive slower than baler would have handled because next higher gear was to fast to take that row. And engine baler actually gave you higher productive than even a tractor with live pto.

 

[Leroy]

If it was an air cooled engine could have taken the cowling off before going in to eat and cleaned the fins out and when you came back from eating and put the cowling on it would have started easly.

 

[Russ from MN]

I was given a Mott corn stalk chopper with an engine like that, with hand crank start. I cranked it over until I gave up, it wouldn't even pop. So, I took the plugs out and put some oil in the cylinders, and it started right up! I think I read on here that when shutting down a Wisconsin engine for the season to flood it with oil until it dies and put it to bed. We had a big V-4 on a IH swather when I was young, And I remember dad taking it in and having the valves ground so that it would start, I have always wondered if some oil in the cylinders would have solved the problem. The swather was easy to start in the morning but if I shut it off for lunch it took a long time to get it re-started, so we kept it running until it was back in the shed.

 

[NIK OWEN]

NO, THAT WUZ THE WISCONSIN VH-4, V-4...CARB IN VALLEY BETWEEN 2 VERY HOT AIRCOOLED BANKS, BOILED GAS OUT OF CARB...I KNOW...J.D 214 WS BE BLESSED, GRATEFUL, PREPARED, NIK

 

[Iowa Joe]

I have an old Turner square baler (Twine-O-Matic) that has the 2 cylinder engine on it. we often would put a belt on the baler flywheel to start it.

 

[mrslesq]

I don't know a thing about those old baler engines, but I know that I have eaten many meals while listening to the baler engine running outside while we ate. Afraid to shut it off because it was not a good hot starter. Once you got it running, it ran until the hay got too tough to bale. Some good memories - some not so good. I particularly remember one old Deere baler that whipped everybody on the hay crew. We finally got it running, but it was nearly dark. I think if we had just went off and left it to cool down we would have been back baling quicker. We cranked it enough to keep it hot. Pulled it with an A John Deere. I didn't understand why the farmer didn't convert it to PTO drive.

"Pulled it with an A John Deere. I didn't understand why the farmer didn't convert it to PTO drive."
We had a JD 116W baler with a Wisconsin motor on it. One reason to your question is most tractors pulling it did not have live PTOs. Another reason is running the tractor at PTO speed you are stuck with the ground speed of whatever gear you are in. With an engine you can speed up ground speed in a thin windrow or slow down in a heavier windrow keeping the baler full. And yes they were a bummer to start when hot. One year I had an extra hard time starting the engine. I took the condenser (?) ( in the magneto) to my uncle, a mechanic, and he wondered how I even got the engine started. Replace it and it started a lot better! Decades later a neighbor (not when we had problems) said they solved the problem by putting the condenser up in a cooler place and running wires down to the magneto.

 

[shaun wallace]

I have one of the 2 cyl that was on trencher and neighbor has trencher with one that hasnt ran in years . The one I have think is stuck also have V4 that came off baler, what brand is not known .