Working With the Hesston 5510 Bearings and Their Manual
The Hesston 5510 round baler is a machine that doesn't forgive neglect when it comes to its bearings. I've seen plenty of these things sit idle through one season, then get dragged back out the next spring with everything seized up because someone didn't grease the plunger bearings or check the idler pulleys. The manual covers the basics, but it won't tell you everything you need to know before you're standing in a dusty field with a wrench in your hand. Most of the bearing failures I've dealt with on these balers fall into a few common patterns. The plunger carriage bearings take the hardest abuse. They run under heavy side load every time the pickup feeds material into the chamber. If you're baling wet corn stalks or thick alfalfa, the friction climbs fast and the grease gets cooked out of those bearings within a season if you're not maintaining them properly. I learned that the hard way on a '89 model where the plunger seized mid-bale and tore a mounting bracket off the frame. Took me three hours to dig it out and another two to weld it back together. The kicker arm bearings are another trouble spot. They rotate on every cycle and collect every bit of dust and chaff in the environment. Standard grease fittings work if you catch them before they're packed solid. I found that using a grease zerk extender hose makes it easier to reach the ones buried near the frame, especially when the baler is covered in residue from a long tying cycle.
When it comes to replacement, the Hesston 5510 uses fairly standard bearing sizes, but sourcing genuine New Holland parts can be painful and expensive. I've had good luck withTimken or NTN replacements for the main plunger shaft bearings. The part numbers on the manual are useful but sometimes don't account for the mid-production changes Hesston made before they fully transitioned to New Holland branding. If you're ordering parts, take photos of your existing bearings and compare them before you pull the trigger on a purchase. One thing the manual doesn't emphasize enough is the importance of proper preload on the plunger bearing assembly. Over-tightening the adjusting nuts during reassembly is a mistake I've seen repeat after repeat. It feels right when you're torquing it down because it takes some effort, but that preload kills the bearings within weeks. You want just enough tension to eliminate play without any noticeable drag when you spin the plunger shaft by hand. A few minutes of adjustment here saves you a full teardown later. For those looking at the actual documentation, the Hesston 5510 Bearings Round Baler Manual is available through various agricultural document repositories online. The New Holland dealer portal has copies if you have a dealer account. Some farm equipment forums also have scanned versions floating around. I'd recommend checking both before buying a reprint, since the originals are straightforward to read and don't suffer from the quality issues you get with cheap photocopies.
There's also the belt tension and knotter area to consider. The bearings in the twine feed mechanism wear differently than the structural bearings. They don't carry the same loads but they do spin faster and get exposed to the same abrasive environment. Lubrication intervals here should be more frequent than the manual suggests if you're running the baler through thick crop conditions. Every twenty bales or so is a reasonable check point for those fittings. If you're dealing with a complete bearing failure rather than preventive maintenance, the trickiest part is usually extraction. Rust and corrosion lock these bearings onto their shafts quickly. A bearing puller is the right tool, but in the field that's not always available. I've used heat from a propane torch on the bearing housing before, then tapped the inner race with a soft face mallet to break the corrosion bond. Don't apply heat directly to the bearing itself since that destroys the metallurgy. Work the heat into the outer race housing and let the expansion do the work. One other practical note: when you rebuild the plunger bearing area, clean the shaft thoroughly before installing new bearings. Any residual grit or old grease left on the shaft surface will create a false seating surface and lead to premature failure of whatever you just put in. I use a fine emery cloth and brake cleaner for this. Takes about five minutes and it makes a real difference in how long the new bearings last.
Get the Full Details
These balers are workable machines if you treat them with basic mechanical respect. The manual is a reference point, not a complete guide. The real knowledge comes from knowing which bearings fail first, why they fail, and what actually works when you're trying to fix them in a timely manner.
