Case 8465 baler bale shape sensor issues

[trentr]

Have used an 8465 for many years. Currently struggling with bale shape sensors. They work erratically. Drive "left" has 2 arrows then 4 then 3 and just jumps all over the place. Drive "right " has 4 arrows all the time. Never changes. The monitor set up sometimes says adjust cw sometimes ccw. But adjusting them seems to make no difference.
So which physical side of the baler triggers the Drive "left" arrows?
I tested resistance (ohms) on the physical left sensor as seated in the operator seat. The first good distance of travel reads 346 ohms and then it finally counts down to 106 or so in the next very small amount of travel. Seems fishy. I got disgusted and just baler while ignoring arrows as I have the last several times I baled. Up until this year they had worked well. This year when initially having problems I found 1 sensor arm missing. Replaced it and thought it would be fixed. Nope. I adjust per manual and monitor instruction as we have in the past for this baler and the prior, also an 8465 that caught fire DOH!. But to no avail. Google seems of little help as well. The 8465 guru in our area died. Anyway, any ideas? Can one still find these sensors to replace them? I have had no luck this far and the parts baler I have found are missing the sensors already leading me to believe they are no longer available. Thanks in advance.

 

[Paul swpa]

My thoughts would be the right side baler sensor runs the drive left lights. Sounds like time for a new sensor when the ohms are as you stated,. Should change in a more or less linear fashion, lights changing erratically I believe points this out. Went to look at my baler manual - it's an cih 8455 so same vintage (also listed your 8465 on cover). It's a 4 foot wide version. Found a note I had tucked in book : "against the upper stop (pushed in) should have 0-14 ohms, pulled out should be 177-194 ohms and should change smoothly." If anything different time to replace the bale shape switch book says. If I remember right these balers were made by hesston for cih, some john deere's, and a couple other brands I can't recall. Got our baler new in 1996. Paul

 

[trentr]

My mind sees the physical right controling drive left as well. Thanks for the input. Every little bit helps.

 

[Paul swpa]

It has been a good while since I had to work on ours, probably in the late 90's, it wasn't very old at the time. I think I took the sensor apart to see how it was made. Believe it is oil filled (dielectric?). Picture in my mind is of a bare copper wire wound around a flat plastic piece with an arm that rides along the wire. Might be rebuildable if you can find the correct size wire ( at an electric motor rebuild shop?). Just an idea if it is unobtainable now. The one I replaced years ago had a break in the wire winding.