PDA

View Full Version : Rover Rancher not cutting grass, not a good mower.



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

grillonz
13-11-2007, 08:51 PM
Can you shrink the disk size? That is to say have a smaller diameter centre disk & longer flail blade length. All that disk area is not allowing the grass time to rise into the path of the blades.


happy mowing
James

apples
14-11-2007, 12:06 AM
there are 4 blades all about 4" long that should be enough?

I think the problem is there needs to be more distance between the end of the blades and the deck. Its probably say 1/2 inch but 2" would all ow it time to pop up. But then I'd loose cut width.

kakegc
14-11-2007, 08:33 AM
I used to have one of the older 20" Rover self propelled pushies that did that apples. I put it down to the weight of the mower (they were very heavy for a 20") But I could have been wrong! :confused: It sort of forced the wheels down into the ground & so the deck was lower that it should have been & the front of the deck kept rolling the grass over, especially tall skinny weeds. An hour after I cut the lawn, the weeds all stood back up again & it looked like crap! :mad: They changed the design of the front of the deck a bit when they brought the 22" out & the newer design seems a lot better (higher!) ??? :i dunno:

grillonz
14-11-2007, 03:18 PM
I had the same problem on a Rover 18'' push mower I had from local hire centre. At first I thought bad blades but even with new blades problem persisted. Interestingly a local mod done to the honda self drive mower is to use the 19" disk in the 21" mower with cox blades. It improves catching performance.

Happy mowing
James

kakegc
15-11-2007, 08:45 AM
Hi again apples, thanks for the info on the MTD Yardman mower you had, I've only ever only 2 bits of MTD equipment; a chipper & a rotary hoe. I bought them both new & both were absolute disappointments :( so I've avoided buying anything else MTD ever since. I passed on a couple of Yardman mowers that seemed like bargain prices because of that. I might have to re-think my attitude towards them! ;)

apples
15-11-2007, 10:27 AM
Hi guys,

Well I did find something out.. In a nut shell, to keep the story short. The boys from one of the local mower shops are aware of the problem. Aparantly "the rover rancher is a mower for lawns that are well looked after and cut regularily". Crap, The rancher will knock over some pretty heavy grass.

The boys said they know of two ways to improve the cut on that stringy stuff.

1. cut some of the front deck out
2 use cox blades as they are stepped down.

so bought some cox blades and they now hang about 1/4" belwo the deck. not quite far down as the Yardman though.

The result. It does cut much much better. But is still not 100% clean. But still a huge improvement to what it was.

apples
15-11-2007, 10:32 AM
Oh, just got 2 emails back one from MTD Australia and one from ROver Australia.

I was asking about their blade tip speeds so that I could compare the Yardman to the Rover. Then I would know if the Yarman was spinning the blades faster than the Rover and thus giving a better cut.

---------------------------------------
Hi Peter,
We do not have any recorded Blade Tip speed figures.
However, all MTD machines are designed to run at a safe usable speed.

Regards,

Joe Spiteri.
National Spare Parts Manager
MTD Products Australia Pty Ltd.
---------------------------------------------------
G'day Peter,

Tip speed is governed by engine rpm. I suggest you have
your local Briggs & Stratton dealer check the rpm on your mower.

Regards
Bob
Bob Holmes
Customer Service
Rover Mowers LTD
---------------------------------------------------------


So, neither one could tell me what the blade tip speed is.

So what do i do now? I might email rover back and say that I'm trying to work out why it won't cut grass and why the old Yardman will.

Peter

administrator
15-11-2007, 12:59 PM
What would a national spare parts manger and a customer service operator know
I think u would need to speak to some one in technical operations ;dealers;

apples
16-11-2007, 09:15 AM
yeah I see your point

administrator
16-11-2007, 09:53 AM
Apples if i were you i would ring the President of each company or better still write a letter and tell them your problem and or ask them the information you require .
The men at the top can delagate the right people to give you the right answers you seek . :)

apples
16-11-2007, 08:57 PM
Yeah might have to. I did reply back to they guy agian but he did not reply. Argggh.