How to Remove Knotters from John Deere Model 14T / 214T Balers

The small square baler that started it all: John Deere 14T.  Our customers say it makes the best bales of all the models since then. But there's been a bunch of improvements and modifications since the 14T, not the least of which is making it easier to remove the knotters for rebuilding or repair.

We get a lot of questions about this, so we've put together a step-by-step instruction guide.  It's a good idea to take a picture of your knotters and shims so you have a baseline to work from when you're reinstalling the knotters.

We're keeping it simple, so here goes:

	Remove needle lift arm pin
	Loosen bolt and remove needle lift arm
	Remove knotter frame bolts from each knotter
	Remove cotter pin from shaft next to both knotters
	Slide intermittent gear to the right to remove shaft key
	Slide knotter and tucker shaft trip arm to the right to remove additional shaft key
	Slide knotters and intermittent gears to the left
	Remove bale sizer bracket
	Slide intermittent gear and knotter to the left to remove shaft key
	Remove set screw, slide to left to remove additional shaft key
	Remove pin from the back
	Remove 2 bolts from the back of the bevel gear shield
	Remove last bolt from underneath front of the shield
	Remove roller chain from knotter drive sprocket
	The knotter shaft should slide to the left, carefully remove intermittent gears and knotters