J D Rake Teeth

[Kelly in tx]

I'm tired of replacing broken rubber mounted teeth on my old John Deere 670 side delivery rake. Today I stopped at Tractor Supply to buy more.
They were out. I bought a half dozen coil spring type, single, all metal teeth of the same length. They were a sorta caterpiller yellow. I have
no idea what they were for. They seemed to work okay this afternoon. Anybody else done this? Any better ideas? kelly

 

[DeltaRed]

Yellow,most likely New Holland. If they fit and work,go for it. BTDT.

 

[DanielW]

We have some pretty rough/rocky ground at our Northern farm. We've found the rubber teeth last a little longer before 'something' happens to them, but that 'something' is usually them shearing off completely. The steel coil tines get damaged more frequently, but when they get 'damaged' it's often just being bent out of shape, and you can get pretty good at bending them back to the original shape.

When we used side delivery rakes (a Deere 894, 670, and a Massey 36) we just kept using whatever style the rake had on it to begin with. Covering about 70 acres a year (only one cutting) we'd probably replace 10-15 teeth a year, regardless of which rake/tooth type we were using. The biggest things we found to help with tooth breakage were:

- Raise as high as possible. Not worth scalping the ground to get an extra $15 of hay per field if it's going to cost you $30 in broken tines.

- Make sure whatever the rake had for basket counterbalance springs is working correctly. This is often overlooked, and makes a huge difference. Very often you see rakes at auctions with the springs missing or MacGyvered to not use the counterbalance springs. If they're working and adjusted correctly, they'll support about two thirds of the basket weight, so when the tines hit a rock/bump they only have to handle 1/3 of the basket weight and just lift the basket over. If the springs are missing or not adjusted correctly, you have the full weight of the basket crashing into every lump/bump. I think the 670 just uses two large compression springs - one on each height adjustment handle, so it'd be pretty hard to go wrong with them. The 890 series Deere's had a more complex counterbalance mechanism, which I think actually worked better and supported more basket weight, though if it really started bouncing the spring would come unclipped.

Best thing we did was go to a rotary rake. better cleanup, faster drying, and the long coil tines are far better on the rough ground.

 

[tomstractorsandtoys]

Deere rubber teeth seem to hold up better than aftermarket. Letting your rake outside shortens the life of the rubber. My rakes are inside most of the time and I have very little problem with tooth breakage. Tom

 

[Tony in SD]

One thing we found out many years ago, if you back up with the rake engaged, I will shorten the life of the rake teeth.

 

[Northvale PA]

This is a photo of replacing the seals in the NH gearbox but I also replaced any of the bar bearings that had slop in them. Once I did that the amount of broken teeth went from about 5 per year down to about one every five years. Hard to believe. My theory is the teeth flexed back enough got caught on the stripper bars often and just snapped them quickly. Now almost never. So check those.