Bought a hay rake at auction

Pig

Tractorologist
Member
I've been buying farm equipment at various auctions over the last few years.
The auctions have a great selection, BUT it's not easy to choose a good, well maintained piece of equipment.

It seems many farmers buy farm equipment new, immediately use the instruction & maintenance manual as kindling, and [ab]use the machine without ever spending any time or money on any kind of maintenance. Once it stops working it's OFF to the auction.

If you're lucky, you'll get one of these pieces of equipment that was so well designed originally, that even with the previous owner's neglect, you can still get years and years of good use out of it, after spending some time in getting back up to a standard where it should have been maintained at.

The last few items I bid & won at auction were still in Pennsylvania but too far away to attend personally; so all I could go by was the descriptions (almost non-existent), and the pictures.

Remember if you WIN at an auction it means there was no other person who was willing to pay MORE than you! :confused:

My latest 'victim' is this German-made twin rotor hay rake:
IMG_1684modm.jpg

All hoses need replacing. All tires need replacing. One of the main hydraulic lift-cylinders is leaking badly. The rear guard was mangled and patched up horribly. The lighting and electrical wiring was chewed up somehow. Oil probably was never changed in its gear-boxed and rotary drives.
BUT, the thing still spins, and with some investment of time & money, it should make a GREAT hay rake for first, and second cut hay. This particular side delivery hay rake has the ability to either make one large swath or two small ones.

I have ~6 months to get it ready for the next hay! :)
 
Is that a Pottinger?
I don't mind buying something that needs a little work as long as the price right!
But boys I hate it when they blatantly lie like a rug and charge you top dollar!
This was the case when I bought my 575 NH baler.... it was completely whipped and the dope said it was fine... well he ended up buying a ton of parts for it and had them drop shipped to me so I could fix it right!
Now its almost like new!
 
It's a VICON ANDEX made by Kverneland in Germany. They still make stuff that is sold by Kubota in the US.

Yeah, there was some lying going on here too: it was listed as a bigger (more expensive) model, but was hard to tell from the crappy pictures they uploaded. Once I had it delivered, I could clearly see where the model number sticker used to be that it was the smaller, less popular model. :mad:
I wouldn't mind so much, but it appears parts are harder to get for this exact model!

The DEAD-GIVEAWAY from a dealer that a piece of farm equipment is TRASH is when they use the phrase: "gone through our shop" or something like that. ;)
 
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT SIR!
And I told him him that it has to be fixed before going out the other door or it doesn't count! LOL
 
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I told him to come and get it and bring back my trade as it made better bales that that one he sold me, he didn't want to do that, so he paid for the parts.
All new plunger bearings, all the yokes on the pto shaft and joints, and flywheel bushings!
If had not been cold and raining I would have seen all that when checking it over and left it right there!
Thats water over the dam now,
Now its dang near new lol.
 
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