apples
13-11-2007, 08:26 PM
Hi,
For years I've use a Yardman MTD 12.5hp 38" cut. Beautiful cut, no problems.
We bought a Rover Rancher about 2yrs ago. 13hp motor 30" cut. The cut on this thing is most of the time in my mowing situations well below acceptable.
The only time it will mow gras ok, is when you are mowing a well maintained lawn. The laswn must have no weeds in it, and must have no tall stringy bits. Otherwise it simply will not cut it, full stop.
It is that bad that you have to go over it twice. After going over it once, I reckon that there is about 20-30% grass that is not cut. Yeahs it's pretty bad.
So I started thinking why the old yardman gave a smooth clean cut and this brand new rover didn't. Two things come to my mind that directly affect cut quality.
1. Blade tip speed
2. Distance between bottom edge of deck and cutting edge.
1. If blade speed is to slow it will not cut properly. Solution, maybe I can mod the ROver Rancher and put a new higher geared pulley on so that it will give the blades a higer rpm. But dodgey because I don't know how fast you can safely spin blades untill they fatigue and fly off etc.
So I had a look under the two mowers to compare. The Blades on the MTD Yardman are about 10mm or 3/8 below the edges of the cutting deck. The Rover on the other hand, the blades are flush level with the deck edge.
I reckon that the Rovers deck pushes the grass over then if the grass is to long there is no room for it to spring back up and get hit by the blades. Short turf/grass is okay.
The MTD the blades sit below the deck further therfore even if the grass is folded over it will still hit it.
........
So what to do, what to do.
Phoned up the mower shop, and they said to either cut some steel out of the front deck. I do beleive that the COX mowers have a flap at the front that you can pull up.
Or....
You can use COX blades on the 30" Rover deck. They are shaped different and have a step down thing in them. This will lower the blades slightly below the edge of the cutting deck. Hopefully this fixes the problem.
As the Rover Rancher is AU made. It has to stick to AU design and saftery regs. The MTD being USA made probably has differnt regs. Also it is older so maybe they have brought in new regs since the too.
Anyway, when you pay $000 for a new machine and it don't cut grass like an old bombed out ride on will, I get quite pi**ed off.
So hopefully this fixes it. Buying new blades tomorrow. Will post the results.
Two pics below. One showing Yardman blade hanging below deck (can fit my finger in the gap), the other pic is the Rover deck.
Has anyone experienced this before?
Cheers
Peter
Toowoomba, Qld
Australia
For years I've use a Yardman MTD 12.5hp 38" cut. Beautiful cut, no problems.
We bought a Rover Rancher about 2yrs ago. 13hp motor 30" cut. The cut on this thing is most of the time in my mowing situations well below acceptable.
The only time it will mow gras ok, is when you are mowing a well maintained lawn. The laswn must have no weeds in it, and must have no tall stringy bits. Otherwise it simply will not cut it, full stop.
It is that bad that you have to go over it twice. After going over it once, I reckon that there is about 20-30% grass that is not cut. Yeahs it's pretty bad.
So I started thinking why the old yardman gave a smooth clean cut and this brand new rover didn't. Two things come to my mind that directly affect cut quality.
1. Blade tip speed
2. Distance between bottom edge of deck and cutting edge.
1. If blade speed is to slow it will not cut properly. Solution, maybe I can mod the ROver Rancher and put a new higher geared pulley on so that it will give the blades a higer rpm. But dodgey because I don't know how fast you can safely spin blades untill they fatigue and fly off etc.
So I had a look under the two mowers to compare. The Blades on the MTD Yardman are about 10mm or 3/8 below the edges of the cutting deck. The Rover on the other hand, the blades are flush level with the deck edge.
I reckon that the Rovers deck pushes the grass over then if the grass is to long there is no room for it to spring back up and get hit by the blades. Short turf/grass is okay.
The MTD the blades sit below the deck further therfore even if the grass is folded over it will still hit it.
........
So what to do, what to do.
Phoned up the mower shop, and they said to either cut some steel out of the front deck. I do beleive that the COX mowers have a flap at the front that you can pull up.
Or....
You can use COX blades on the 30" Rover deck. They are shaped different and have a step down thing in them. This will lower the blades slightly below the edge of the cutting deck. Hopefully this fixes the problem.
As the Rover Rancher is AU made. It has to stick to AU design and saftery regs. The MTD being USA made probably has differnt regs. Also it is older so maybe they have brought in new regs since the too.
Anyway, when you pay $000 for a new machine and it don't cut grass like an old bombed out ride on will, I get quite pi**ed off.
So hopefully this fixes it. Buying new blades tomorrow. Will post the results.
Two pics below. One showing Yardman blade hanging below deck (can fit my finger in the gap), the other pic is the Rover deck.
Has anyone experienced this before?
Cheers
Peter
Toowoomba, Qld
Australia