John Deere 54 hay rake opinions

[Sarged76]

I am looking for a rake for our small farm operation. I have been looking for a new holland 256 or 258, but have not been able to find one in a distance I am able to go to pick it up. There is a John Deere 54 hydraulic rake locally. I have been looking for information on them and have not been able to find much. Opinions on this rake? What are they worth? Anything to look out for on them?

Thanks,

Dan

 

[DanielW]

I believe they were just the hydraulic and mounted version of the 670 and similar-series rakes, which themselves were a more modern version of the 640/660 that were very popular and robust rakes.

Probably about as good as anything you'll find for a bar rake. Because it's a three-point model, you'll need to have a tractor suitable of lifting it. And your tractor needs to have a hydraulic system suitable of running the basket motor at steady state without overheating. Most tractors will because it doesn't require a lot of flow/pressure to run the rake, so it won't be heating crazily fast. But it can be a concern. What tractor are you planning on using?

As far as robustness/parts go, not much to go wrong. Most parts will be the same as the 640/660/670 rakes, and the hydraulic motor will be a standard one (I think Deere used Danfoss motors? could be wrong) that you can swap out with several different aftermarket motors with the same capacity/mount flange. Keep your fluid clean and cool and the motor will probably outlive you.

Decent rakes, but I wouldn't pay too much for them. Prices for bar rakes (at least around here) are plummeting fast year by year now that people are realizing the advantages of rotaries, and because rotary rakes made these days are a lot more robust than they were 30 years ago. Nothing wrong with a bar rake - they're pretty indestructible, and millions of acres of hay have been and are being raked with them every year. They're just nowhere near as nice as a rotary for gentle handling of the hay or making a flufffy windrow, and nowhere near as fast as a modern wheel rake. But they do the job just fine. Just don't expect it to be an investment you can sell again in 10 years for a good price. I suspect in 10 years bar rakes will be almost given away. They already are being pretty much given away around my area because everyone's going to rotary or wheel rakes. But this is a huge alfalfa area next to Lake Ontario, so gentle handling of the leaves and improved dry time due to the lake effect dew are huge concerns, while many the cattle/dairy guys want wheel rakes with huge swaths that can run at 10+ MPH. But for 95% of hay a bar rake will do just dandy.

 

[Sarged76]

I am running it with a new (2022) Deere 5055. The guy wants $3000(though sounds like he may take less) for it but around here they want that for a NH 256 also. It will just be to do 60-90 acres of horse hay per year.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

I am running it with a new (2022) Deere 5055. The guy wants $3000(though sounds like he may take less) for it but around here they want that for a NH 256 also. It will just be to do 60-90 acres of horse hay per year.

Unless the thing is as new, he's completely insane.

I would not want a 3pt mounted rake for the inconvenience of hooking up, not to mention lack of clearance for heavy windrows.

 

[DanielW]

I'd somewhat agree with Barnyard: That seems uncommonly steep to me. But then again, the 54 is a pretty new rake; if it's in great condition and that's what rakes are going for in your area, maybe that's not out of line. I wouldn't consider paying that much, but everyone's case is different. We paid $3000 for a Kuhn GA3200GT rotary about 4 years ago, which is 10X the rake that any of our old bar rakes were (we had a varying selection of New Hollands, Deeres, and Masseys). And after owning the rotary I'll never go back to a bar rake. But I have to acknowledge the price we paid for the Kuhn was superb - we got a great deal, and I wouldn't expect to find a deal like that again.

If it's in great shape and there's not much else nearby, it might be your best/only option. But try talking him down at least a few hundred dollars. It wouldn't be worth nearly that much to me, but you also have to place a value on your time/effort trying to find a rake: If you need one soon, if there are no others nearby, and if it's going to take days of scouring ads and long travel distances to inspect other rakes, the $3k might be worth it to you.

Also consider that, while 60-90 acres is not much compared to what some folks do, it's still a sizable amount of hay for an 8' width rake - especially if you're doing 2 or 3 cuts a year. You want a rake that's in good shape and not going to be spitting reel bearings or cracking gearboxes.

Not sure if you're aware, but Deere offers operator manuals free for download on their site. Take a look at this link. When you open the link for the operator manual you'll see some prices listed, but those are for hard copies. There's a download link in the upper right corner of each publication listing.

Search for Equipment Publications - Technical Information Store

techpubs.deere.com

 

[tom upton]

I am looking for a rake for our small farm operation. I have been looking for a new holland 256 or 258, but have not been able to find one in a distance I am able to go to pick it up. There is a John Deere 54 hydraulic rake locally. I have been looking for information on them and have not been able to find much. Opinions on this rake? What are they worth? Anything to look out for on them?

Thanks,

Dan

Sounds like I do about the same amount of hay as you. Personaly I would shy away from the 54. I dont like the thoughts of hooking up and unhooking any 3 point hitch implement that is only used for a short time. Unless you can dedicate a tractor to it and just leave it on that tractor all summer? Next thing I dont like about them is they dont have much better than wheel barrow size tires on them to support the back end of the machine bouncing over any sort of rough ground. You will most likely encounter lots more flat tires? ( One I looked at a while back had both back tires flat) Last but not least I would be concerned about oil overheating. Your 5055 being on the smaller size probably has a relatively small hydraulic resovoir. It has lots of flow capacity to run the motor but I was taught ( simplified version) that you need a minimum of 2.5 times the flow rate that a continously running hydraulic motor takes for the capacity of your oil tank. I am not sure what flow the motor on a 54 takes, but a some what educated guess would be at least 4 GPM Maybe even 5 ( guess it depends how fast you want to run it?) so I would check with JD that the capacity of your resovoir is going to be large enough to keep your oil from overheating?
For roll bar rakes it is hard to beat a plain old ground drive. I use a JD 640 with teeth on the outer end only to "flip" the outside windrow without catching the next windrow in. As of this year I bought an inverter that I absolutley love, thats why the JD only flips the outside windrow now. Then I have a old 256 NH that has all the teeth on it for merging windrows and such. I also have a fluffer style tedder that has paid for itself many times over in getting hay to dry faster, mind you I havent used it as much now that I have the inverter as it leaves the hay kind of fluffed up unlike a rollbar rake.
It takes some work and some good weather luck to make good horse hay. I say the best hay you make will be the stuff you didnt touch after cutting till it was baled, but it dont always work that way. I have a very wise nieghbour who told me that raking hay just gives you something to do while waiting for hay to dry! In a lot of circumstances I agree with him.

 

[Sarged76]

Ok, yeah I think I will hold off on this one and will either try to find funds for a rotary rake or find an old NH 256 of JD640/660/670. Tom, I am not sure cutting and not raking is really an option since I live in Western Washington, way to wet here.

Thanks for the help.