What did you do to or on your Kubota today?

[NCL4701]

Had a storm a few days ago that took out about 40 trees. That doesn’t count the smaller trees that were collateral damage when the bigger ones came down. Thankfully none on the houses, just a ton of limbs down in the house areas.

Not trying to get them all up. Right now just trying to clear the dozen that blocked trails. With temps in the high 90’s, it would be incredibly slow without the winch and grapple. Haven’t taken the time to take pics. Wife insisted on being present for anything “dangerous” so she took a couple of pics at the one spot where she watched.

Some time before deer season, I have to fix the permanent elevated hunting blind. The top of the tree that it’s in blew out and some part of it hit the blind. It’s not hurt bad, but needs some repair. The tree has a stripe from the ground to about 35’ up, so it’s kind of likely lightning was involved. Giving that a couple weeks to see if the tree dies immediately before more than temporary repairs. Permanent repair would take about 30 minutes if it wasn’t 10’ off the ground on a 40 degree slope.

Thought we were finished this afternoon after three full days of work, not all in succession. Riding back from checking on the box blind tree (which is still alive) saw a large dead ash that fell across the sewer line, taking a small oak with a large poison ivy vine with it. That was just irritating. Being allergic to poison ivy, a vine big enough to have 3’ branches for 50’ up the tree is a PITA that complicates the job. Thinking I’ll kill the vine and pop off the lower few feet with a bush axe in the next couple days. After it’s died back some I’m pretty sure I can winch the 10” x 60’ oak out from under the ash and shove the whole thing off into the edge of the woods without ever touching it. The ash should be pretty straightforward to deal with after that. Maybe I’ll have time and remember to take pics of that.

 

[GrumpyFarmer]

Had a storm a few days ago that took out about 40 trees. That doesn’t count the smaller trees that were collateral damage when the bigger ones came down. Thankfully none on the houses, just a ton of limbs down in the house areas.

Not trying to get them all up. Right now just trying to clear the dozen that blocked trails. With temps in the high 90’s, it would be incredibly slow without the winch and grapple. Haven’t taken the time to take pics. Wife insisted on being present for anything “dangerous” so she took a couple of pics at the one spot where she watched.

Some time before deer season, I have to fix the permanent elevated hunting blind. The top of the tree that it’s in blew out and some part of it hit the blind. It’s not hurt bad, but needs some repair. The tree has a stripe from the ground to about 35’ up, so it’s kind of likely lightning was involved. Giving that a couple weeks to see if the tree dies immediately before more than temporary repairs. Permanent repair would take about 30 minutes if it wasn’t 10’ off the ground on a 40 degree slope.

Thought we were finished this afternoon after three full days of work, not all in succession. Riding back from checking on the box blind tree (which is still alive) saw a large dead ash that fell across the sewer line, taking a small oak with a large poison ivy vine with it. That was just irritating. Being allergic to poison ivy, a vine big enough to have 3’ branches for 50’ up the tree is a PITA that complicates the job. Thinking I’ll kill the vine and pop off the lower few feet with a bush axe in the next couple days. After it’s died back some I’m pretty sure I can winch the 10” x 60’ oak out from under the ash and shove the whole thing off into the edge of the woods without ever touching it. The ash should be pretty straightforward to deal with after that. Maybe I’ll have time and remember to take pics of that. View attachment 177007 View attachment 177008 View attachment 177009 View attachment 177010

Oh my…I am sorry you lost so many trees. I am dealing with that myself recently.

I am curious about how you haul gear to the site…are you using another vehicle (SxS, ATV, other) or managing carrying everything on the tractor? If all on tractor how managing for a day in the woods? Carrying some to site in the grapple or pulling of why? ( I am imagining a chainsaw kit tools/chains/wedges/first aid, two saws, maybe a cooler, etc). I don’t see scabbards or anything nifty to load gear into so I wonder how hauling everything back to the work site.

when I have my wagon, I am all set…I recently found that when I have a jack strawed wood lot, wagon not the solution then I am gapping on bringing full kit with me.

 

[NCL4701]

Oh my…I am sorry you lost so many trees. I am dealing with that myself recently.

I am curious about how you haul gear to the site…are you using another vehicle (SxS, ATV, other) or managing carrying everything on the tractor? If all on tractor how managing for a day in the woods? Carrying some to site in the grapple or pulling of why? ( I am imagining a chainsaw kit tools/chains/wedges/first aid, two saws, maybe a cooler, etc). I don’t see scabbards or anything nifty to load gear into so I wonder how hauling everything back to the work site.

when I have my wagon, I am all set…I recently found that when I have a jack strawed wood lot, wagon not the solution then I am gapping on bringing full kit with me.

There’s a hammer strap type saw holder on the left side of the winch for the Husqvarna 455. It’s kind of hard to see in the pic above. The pegs on the sides hold the coiled control ropes, a tree saver strap or two for anchor points for redirected or double line pulls, two snatch blocks, helmet or hat (whichever I’m not wearing), and a couple 10 ton shackles. There are pockets on each side to hold two chokers and a couple plastic wedges. Bar oil and gloves hang from carabiner type clips on the cage.

Stuff that rides in the grapple: I have an old metal Coleman cooler that looks like it was pulled out of a trash pile because it was. It holds drinks and miscellaneous small stuff. If I have a good bit of limbing to do, a little 12” electric saw rides up front. The gas can also rides in the grapple. All that is my “basic kit” for messing with trees.

If my wife is attending for whatever reason, the grapple stuff rides with her in the Mule. That used to be routine as she enjoyed working together. Her health hasn’t allowed much more than occasional observation duties in the past couple years so the Mule isn’t often involved in the actual work.

Any additional stuff needed for a specific job (sledge hammers, axes, cant hook, felling wedges, various chains, bull ropes, additional shackles, load binders, etc.) generally goes in the grapple. Long handled hammers go in a bucket to keep them from falling through the tines. If it’s getting complicated enough to require a mess of stuff beyond the basics, the wife is usually attending with the Mule anyway.

I’m not sure it’s the best system possible. If I was doing this type work all the time, I kind of think I’d put some time and money into trying to not carry anything in the grapple.

 

[GrumpyFarmer]

There’s a hammer strap type saw holder on the left side of the winch for the Husqvarna 455. It’s kind of hard to see in the pic above. The pegs on the sides hold the coiled control ropes, a tree saver strap or two for anchor points for redirected or double line pulls, two snatch blocks, helmet or hat (whichever I’m not wearing), and a couple 10 ton shackles. There are pockets on each side to hold two chokers and a couple plastic wedges. Bar oil and gloves hang from carabiner type clips on the cage.

Stuff that rides in the grapple: I have an old metal Coleman cooler that looks like it was pulled out of a trash pile because it was. It holds drinks and miscellaneous small stuff. If I have a good bit of limbing to do, a little 12” electric saw rides up front. The gas can also rides in the grapple. All that is my “basic kit” for messing with trees.

If my wife is attending for whatever reason, the grapple stuff rides with her in the Mule. That used to be routine as she enjoyed working together. Her health hasn’t allowed much more than occasional observation duties in the past couple years so the Mule isn’t often involved in the actual work.

Any additional stuff needed for a specific job (sledge hammers, axes, cant hook, felling wedges, various chains, bull ropes, additional shackles, load binders, etc.) generally goes in the grapple. Long handled hammers go in a bucket to keep them from falling through the tines. If it’s getting complicated enough to require a mess of stuff beyond the basics, the wife is usually attending with the Mule anyway.

I’m not sure it’s the best system possible. If I was doing this type work all the time, I kind of think I’d put some time and money into trying to not carry anything in the grapple. View attachment 177012

That makes a lot of sense. Very nice set up!

 

[Old_Paint]

You might be able to raise the flail up off the rear roller so you aren’t cutting as much off. At least that is what I’ve been told that some flail users do. But then you may have too much rough terrain to contend with!

I don’t own a flail so don’t know how much that can effect your tractor stability.

I do know that a rotary cutter will knock down tall grass but it will also leave heavy windrows and the grass will be uneven (not all cut well). So you might not be that happy with a rotary cutter either.

Gonna second the input on the RC. I ran one behind an old 8N when I was a kid and it used to annoy me to no end to look back and see one side cut shorter than the other. MOST of that problem is dull blades, but some of it is related to relative blade tip speed. Some is related to age of the grass and when it last rained. The side of the RC where the blade is going the same direction as the travel will have a higher relative tip speed. Sharp blades make this issue less apparent. But sharpening blades on an RC is not something fun to do, especially keeping them balanced. I’ve seen more than one person use 5/16 or 3/8 chain to make the RC basically a very large weed eater and just beat stuff down with it.
One good thing about a flail is that all the knives are at the same relative speed with respect to the ground surface. Another is that they are very light compared to most RCs, which makes them more suited to smoother terrain and less tractor. I find that my LX is very stable even with the flail lifted to full height.

Hammers versus Y-blades can make a lot of difference in cut quality. The Y-blades seem to work better in grass and non-woody weeds. The exact opposite is true for the hammers. Finer grass tends to stick to and build up on the hammers and make them cut very poorly. Put the hammers in woody weeds (volunteer pines, etc) and they shine at their job. The Y-blades have much less inertia than the hammers and tend to bounce off woody stuff. I did find that (raised mower) knocking the tops off thicker brush works pretty good with Y-blades, but it requires a lot of recut to get the woody stuff knocked down.

So, looks like hammers around the perimeter, and Ys in grass. Changing the knives is not a quick job though. I’m almost tempted to go buy a 5-footer and set it up for grass and leave the 4-footer set up for brush.

One distinct advantage the RC has is the ability to back farther under limbs and overgrowth. But this would be a torturous challenge with a manual transmission on a large field. This proved to me that the HST is far superior for maneuvering and cutting. What I am losing on horsepower and cut width I more than make up for with turning time and cut quality, and I don’t chew up the grass with the tires because 2WD is not exactly the best for hills either. Kind of a trade off against a slightly larger tractor (L3130) and a 5-foot RC that probably still has the original blades.

I have a light duty flail (Cosmo FL-135 with Titan Implements decals) that only weighs about 375 pounds. It is Italian made and so far so good with the gear box. Most ZTurns weigh that much or more and have as much HP as my LX2610. But Z-Turns typically aren’t very good on slippery or hilly terrain, and none I know about will clear a 6” obstacle. So far I haven’t destroyed any knives but I have hit a few rocks.

I did a solid 8 hours of seat time on Monday and managed to cut about 8 acres half-lap, meaning I basically cut it twice to help the cut quality. I’m experimenting with cutting methods in the overgrown pastures, but I can’t see the time improving because no matter how I cut it twice, I still cut it twice.

Oh yeah, one more thing I noticed was that the Y-blades weren’t as bad to pick up the baling mesh. I still cleaned up all of it I could find and got rid of the old hay. The owner has a horse in that field and old hay is one of the worst things a horse can get into. I put it all up high on a brush pile from the fence clearing to keep the horse out of it and let it dry so we can burn the pile this winter. The horse seems very happy to have more edible grass exposed. She’s like a big lap dog and has knocked me down 3 times now wanting attention. I may take her some carrots next Monday.

 

[Old_Paint]

Had a storm a few days ago that took out about 40 trees. That doesn’t count the smaller trees that were collateral damage when the bigger ones came down. Thankfully none on the houses, just a ton of limbs down in the house areas.

Not trying to get them all up. Right now just trying to clear the dozen that blocked trails. With temps in the high 90’s, it would be incredibly slow without the winch and grapple. Haven’t taken the time to take pics. Wife insisted on being present for anything “dangerous” so she took a couple of pics at the one spot where she watched.

Some time before deer season, I have to fix the permanent elevated hunting blind. The top of the tree that it’s in blew out and some part of it hit the blind. It’s not hurt bad, but needs some repair. The tree has a stripe from the ground to about 35’ up, so it’s kind of likely lightning was involved. Giving that a couple weeks to see if the tree dies immediately before more than temporary repairs. Permanent repair would take about 30 minutes if it wasn’t 10’ off the ground on a 40 degree slope.

Thought we were finished this afternoon after three full days of work, not all in succession. Riding back from checking on the box blind tree (which is still alive) saw a large dead ash that fell across the sewer line, taking a small oak with a large poison ivy vine with it. That was just irritating. Being allergic to poison ivy, a vine big enough to have 3’ branches for 50’ up the tree is a PITA that complicates the job. Thinking I’ll kill the vine and pop off the lower few feet with a bush axe in the next couple days. After it’s died back some I’m pretty sure I can winch the 10” x 60’ oak out from under the ash and shove the whole thing off into the edge of the woods without ever touching it. The ash should be pretty straightforward to deal with after that. Maybe I’ll have time and remember to take pics of that. View attachment 177007 View attachment 177008 View attachment 177009 View attachment 177010

Good friends who aren’t allergic to PI are handy to have. I only get minor blisters in a scratch or cut that only last a day or so. I had similar vines in my back yard when I bought my place. Cut most of it by machete and axe and pulled it off the trees with a riding mower (until I got the LX).

I’m the guy that gets called when PI is involved. I’m not allergic to much, and nothing organic has been really life threatening. I have a friend who starts itching when someone says poison ivy. He has to carry an epipen. Being that allergic to anything would drive me insane.

Hate to see the tree loss.

 

[aaluck]

A long-time friend of mine has a home repair/remodeling business about 40 miles south of me. I'm retired and doing little more than teaching my chickens to play piano and do trigonometry, so I help him out on occasion for little more than boredom relief as pay. He introduced me to a retired doctor, who impressed the heck out of me. She's 94, still does ballet, can do a standing split, cuts her own grass, and tends at least 20 farm animals that she uses in up to 3 magic shows every year. But recently, she's had triple hernia surgery (I'm guessing from over exertion) and a few years ago fired the guy she had managing her pastures on a 32 acre property. As you might guess, they've grown up from neglect and are in dire need of management, so I sorta volunteered one day a week to get them caught back up.

The first field was nearly 6 acres and is a mix of just about any kind of grass you can think of, and a whole lot of cross-pollinated varieties that are THICK, especially in the bottoms of the hilly land. This has been my first experience with a flail mower in grass, and I'm still wondering if I'm doing it wrong. What I found is that tall grass and hammer flails don't particularly like each other. The grass tends to build up on the hammers and start pushing the grass over rather than cutting it. I have the option to switch to Y blades (the mower came with both), but there's also some 2-3 year old sapling growth scattered about that the hammers will do a much better job on. The problem is, it's a very time-consuming job to switch between them, so swapping blades back and forth is not really an option. I need the hammers for major cleanup, but think the Y blades will serve better in 'pasture grass' once I get it knocked down.

What I found works best is to make a half-swath pass in one direction, turn around and go right back where I came from cutting a half swath in the opposite direction. It's a very slow way to cut, but I'd need a much bigger tractor and mower to do it any other way. This also seems to clean it up a lot better than simply going the same direction multiple times. Basically, it results in the field being cut twice by the time I finish with it. It's a slow go, but not a bad finish for overgrown fields. There's plenty dewberry and black berry briars to go with the thick grass, and of course, near the fence, mower beware. The fence rows are like a box of chocolates because the previous guy that mowed them for her just kept getting farther and farther from the fence because he couldn't be bothered cutting the limbs back and cleaning up as he went. I didn't make a full lap before I found some heavy gauge electric fence wire and wrapped about 50 feet around the flail drum. An angle grinder turned out to be my best friend for a remedy because the wire was fairly large gauge steel wire with a fiberglass sleeve. Got that cut out, and was nearly done with the field (about 10 hours later) when I found something equally evil. Apparently, someone that the owner let board a couple horses used large round bales to feed them. I really don't think she knew what she needed to know about large round bales and horses. First of all, large bales tend to mold LONG before they're consumed by a couple horses. If the horse owner is lucky, and the horse gets picky, they won't eat it. If they aren't lucky, they find their horse laying on it's side dying. Horses and mold do not mix and hay left in the elements is going to mold. Unavoidable. Secondly, the bales provided were apparently wrapped with some kind of nylon or polyethylene mesh, which the horse owner or feed supplier didn't bother to remove and get out of the pasture. I'll give you 3 guesses what I found when I hit a large patch of deep Bermuda grass, and the first two don't count. I just thought the electric fence wire was bad. It took a while to cut that mess out of the mower because it wrapped very tight. Making bad worse, I made two more laps and found another big ball of the stuff. That's TWO. It was getting late, and we wanted to check out an overgrown road (with pines up to 4 inches in diameter growing in it) so I cut my way over to that had a go at what I thought I could chew up with the flail, then went back and loaded up to come home. Next morning, there's a THIRD hairball under my mower and I ain't happy. IMO, ANYONE that uses synthetic non-biodegradable mesh to bale with should be beaten with a stick. A big stick. Maybe a stick with "Louisville Slugger" branded in the side of it. That stuff should be outlawed on the planet. It's extremely dangerous for livestock to ingest it, never mind the dangers it poses to any wildlife that gets tangled up in it. The lady that owns it has at least a dozen geese, 4 donkeys, and a horse and no telling how much wildlife roaming the property.

Ennyhoo, I started the second field yesterday which is approximately 12 acres, and my guess is it's gonna take at least 3 days to clean it up again. According to my buddy, "It's not quite as thick". WRONG. Just as thick, if not thicker in the bottoms with a mix of Bahia, Bermuda, Johnson and even Centipede grasses. Tree limbs were hanging over the fence at least 30 feet out from the fence. And what else do I see? At least 5 spots where large round bales have been put out for feed. That's just the ones I could see, and I'm paranoid about how many have grown over. I cut until I got close to the first one, and then I used the grapple to scrape up all the old hay and the giant hairball of wrapping that was very well hidden in the grass. I also created an enormous brush pile from all the stuff we cut off the fence rows. The little old lady's horse started following us around, and while I was trying to figure out a repair in a corner, the horse nuzzled me and knocked me down. Just being friendly and curious, though, completely unintentional. The horse acts like a very large lap dog wanting attention. We got about 2/3 of the fence line cleared enough to see the fence from the inside and maybe about 1/3 of the field cut yesterday.

It's been a long time since I've spent those kinds of hours on a tractor and had completely forgotten how therapeutic it can be. I was tired, but relaxed and felt pretty good about what I was doing. Not doing it for the money so much as just trying to give back a little of what life has given me.

For now, I'm going down every Monday until I get it all cut down the first time, and will try to get her to let me cut it again before it gets so wild so that maybe it will improve the quality of the pastures for her animals as well as make the place look a lot better. It was a beautiful place at one time, but gonna take some effort to restore it. She has an old L3130 with a 5 foot RC behind it, but there's places that I prefer my LX2610 with 4WD and loaded tires along with the grapple for some of the clean up work. I also like the hydrostatic transmission that lets me slow down the travel speed a bit when I get in the really thick stuff. I nearly stalled the tractor with the mower twice in the thicker places. Her old L3130 is a manual transmission, and I'd wager the blades on the RC haven't been sharpened in at least 10 years. Needless to say, I don't think it would do much better than my little 4 foot flail as far as getting it cut down any faster, and the wear and tear on the clutch would be miserable. I can swap ends pretty quickly on the LX with no shifting. I just cut some headland along the fence rows, and a quick 3 point turn gets me on my way back to where I came from. Some places I can turn around without backing up at all because the flail is so short and I don't have to worry about taking out the fence with it.

Take some before/after pictures. We would like to see the progress.

 

[NCL4701]

Good friends who aren’t allergic to PI are handy to have. I only get minor blisters in a scratch or cut that only last a day or so. I had similar vines in my back yard when I bought my place. Cut most of it by machete and axe and pulled it off the trees with a riding mower (until I got the LX).

I’m the guy that gets called when PI is involved. I’m not allergic to much, and nothing organic has been really life threatening. I have a friend who starts itching when someone says poison ivy. He has to carry an epipen. Being that allergic to anything would drive me insane.

Hate to see the tree loss.

Unfortunately all my friends who are capable of tree work are allergic. I was the poison ivy guy until I was about 35. I’m not terribly allergic, but I can’t handle it, cut it with a chainsaw, etc. like I used to. When I was younger, I would have pulled the vine out by hand and gotten on with business. Now it complicates things.

 

[MOOTS]

Broke out the tiller toter today. I’ll put the garden pictures in the homegrown thread.

 

[psdstu]

Did a little bush hogging with my L4060 and had some company.

 

[In Utopia]

Good friends who aren’t allergic to PI are handy to have. I only get minor blisters in a scratch or cut that only last a day or so. I had similar vines in my back yard when I bought my place. Cut most of it by machete and axe and pulled it off the trees with a riding mower (until I got the LX).

I’m the guy that gets called when PI is involved. I’m not allergic to much, and nothing organic has been really life threatening. I have a friend who starts itching when someone says poison ivy. He has to carry an epipen. Being that allergic to anything would drive me insane.

Hate to see the tree loss.

Been killing it back for years on the property adjoining ours. Not really ours, it belongs to the city, but we fenced it in over 25 years ago. Anyway when it's firs spotted I go over there and spray both the ground and the trees as far up as I can. That's been very successful with keeping it from coming into our place. Well yesterday a Tallow tree broke off and came crashing down across our no climb type fence. Since my wife put me on house arrest while my legs are healing and our tree guy is several days out she gets out there and starts cutting off the small branches and leaving the truck for the tree guys to haul off. A few years ago I purchased the app Plant Finder and it told me after taking pics of it that the roots from the ivy may have been killed and look dead, but they still have the substance that if you get it on you will still affect you. So, the great wife that she is cuts the limbs and hauls them way out back. A few hours later the itching starts. Immediately she knows what it is. She has brushed up against the dead roots on the tree trunk.
Messing with that stuff has some bad effects even in its after life. Worked with a guy that had a bunch around some trees, so he suited up, cut it out and piled it up. About a week later he decides to burn it. Late that evening he checks into the ER with whelps all over and breathing problems. The smoke contained minute particles of that crap.
That was yesterday.Today she's got places up and down her arms and under her left eye. I think what happened is when she was pulling the branches off they made contact with the "dead" roots that are on the trunk.
Lesson here is be damn careful when messing with it.

 

[Old_Paint]

Broke out the tiller toter today. I’ll put the garden pictures in the homegrown thread.
View attachment 177026
View attachment 177027

Nice looking Horse. I don’t think Ive ever seen one with that much shroud on the engine. Or is that larger fuel tanks? I think my ‘78 model might not be the one to compare to others though.

 

[Old_Paint]

Did a little bush hogging with my L4060 and had some company. View attachment 177036

Egrets will catch every cricket that dares to move and be seen. They’ll even catch young mice.

 

[Old_Paint]

Been killing it back for years on the property adjoining ours. Not really ours, it belongs to the city, but we fenced it in over 25 years ago. Anyway when it's firs spotted I go over there and spray both the ground and the trees as far up as I can. That's been very successful with keeping it from coming into our place. Well yesterday a Tallow tree broke off and came crashing down across our no climb type fence. Since my wife put me on house arrest while my legs are healing and our tree guy is several days out she gets out there and starts cutting off the small branches and leaving the truck for the tree guys to haul off. A few years ago I purchased the app Plant Finder and it told me after taking pics of it that the roots from the ivy may have been killed and look dead, but they still have the substance that if you get it on you will still affect you. So, the great wife that she is cuts the limbs and hauls them way out back. A few hours later the itching starts. Immediately she knows what it is. She has brushed up against the dead roots on the tree trunk.
Messing with that stuff has some bad effects even in its after life. Worked with a guy that had a bunch around some trees, so he suited up, cut it out and piled it up. About a week later he decides to burn it. Late that evening he checks into the ER with whelps all over and breathing problems. The smoke contained minute particles of that crap.
That was yesterday.Today she's got places up and down her arms and under her left eye. I think what happened is when she was pulling the branches off they made contact with the "dead" roots that are on the trunk.
Lesson here is be damn careful when messing with it.
View attachment 177066

Yep, the oils remain after the plant is dead. Even the smoke from burning is horrible. A neighbor burned a bunch of brush in her back yard and she looked like someone beat her with a baseball bat. The oil is the culprit and is a lot more reactive when the vines are blooming.

 

[NCL4701]

Rode out to the wind fallen poison ivy trees to start the process to get them up. Upon further inspection, there were three poison ivy vines involved, two dead and one live. As @In Utopia said, dead in no way equals safe but at least for me, dead and dry is less potent than live and sappy. Removed about 2’ from all three with a hatchet, then put the hatchet head in a plastic bag to carry it home where the bag was trashed, hatchet washed, and my arms and hands washed even though I don’t believe I came in contact with it. The 2’ gap should provide a place to cut the trunks away from the stumps and hook a choker without contacting the vines. Before cutting, will wash the area where the vine was with warm water and a brush. I don’t get it nearly as bad as some people (my brother is one who can get it by looking at it), but I prefer to not get it at all.

Then went back to the house to mow the yards at all three houses, the part of the ditches on the private road where grass grows, the top of the dam, and our road frontage on the public road. Of course that was a job for the T. Due to our drought, haven’t had it out much this year. It was all great until about 5 minutes to finish. It just stopped moving. Blades were running, motor running, all sounded normal, but wouldn’t move. The pic is in the gravel outside the shop after I moved it, but the clue to the problem hadn’t changed at all. Not much mystery diagnosing the issue even for a hack amateur mechanic like me. There are only two belts on it. One shredded. Blades work, transmission doesn’t, must be the remains of the HST belt laying on the deck. It’s going nowhere under its own power.
Still had the skidding winch on the L. Took the lower sheave off so it wouldn’t beat the crap out of the back of the T. A 1/2” shackle in the hitch hole on the T, a choker in one of the chain slots of the winch, and a rope to hold the steering wheel handily got it 300 yards up hill to the shop for further attention later.
Figured I’d try to finish with my late father’s old Craftsman branded MTD. Got it running a couple years ago and reupholstered the seat with 1/2 a roll of black duct tape just because I hate having stuff around that isn’t functional. Wouldn’t get much if I sold it, so figured it was worth more as a backup. I’ve never mowed with it other than a very brief test run when I cleaned the carburetor and changed fuel filter to get it running. Probably 5 or 6 years since anyone mowed with it.

After swapping the battery from the T to the Craftsman, it fired right up. Only thing I can say good about it; it did run and it did finish the mowing. The 5 minutes of mowing I had left turned in to 20 minutes with that thing. It had a set maximum “mowing speed”. If a leisurely grazing box turtle had been following me, it would have flipped me off as it passed me. Had to double mow everything too, but that could be dull blades as I didn’t check them. It did work, and I do plan to keep it as a backup, but it made me appreciate the T more than I did already.
While I had the L out, swapped the grapple for the forks to move this thing my wife wants to do I’m not quite sure what with. The storm that knocked down a bunch of trees a while back dumped enough rain to reveal some additional stuff in one of the mostly cleaned out junk piles left by a prior owner of the property. This thing was one of them. I have no clue what it was originally other than a collection of very light duty pipes arranged in a sort of monkey bar configuration. I set it where she said she wanted it. Kind of interested to see what she does with it.

Haven’t looked at the WSM or OM regarding belt replacement. Looking at the mower briefly, about all I figured out was the deck is all in the way of seeing or doing anything much with the transmission belt. Could feel the plastic HST cooling fan. It felt OK. Hopefully a stick got up in it and knocked it off so it just needs a belt, but I don’t really care to pick up a belt until the deck is off and I know that’s all it needs.

 

[Russell King]

@NCL4701

Changing the drive belt is (probably) not hard but just tedious. I recently had to replace mine on my Cub Cadet so will give you a broad overview of the steps.

1) Get the deck out of the way
2) Get the tractor up some on one side to be easier to see and work on. If you have it on a lift would be ideal.
3) Take pictures of where the belt runs if it is still in position. It probably runs high inside the frame rails and around several pulleys.
4) Get the electric PTO off the engine shaft after disconnecting the electrical connections and seeing how the anti rotation arm holds it in place. Using an impact driver will get it off easily. If no impact, then you have to figured out how to keep the engine from turning while getting the bolt loose.
5) After the electric PTO is removed, keep track of any spacers/washers between it and the upper drive pulley.
6) The drive pulley should slide down the engine shaft so the belt can be removed and installed.
7) Get the belt through the frame and up to the drive pulley.
8) Install drive belt on drive pulley and push pulley back up into place.
9) Get the drive belt over the HST fan and onto the HST pulley.
10) Install the spacers and electric PTO. You probably need to align a key and keyway which I recall was difficult, since you also have to align the ant-rotation device.
11) Torque the bolt that restrains the electric PTO.
12) Route the drive belt through all the pulleys properly and put tension on the belt. Adjust tension if possible.
13) Lower tractor and drive it around some before installing the deck.
14) If everything is good, pat yourself on the back.

 

[lynnmor]

There are a number of YouTube videos to help you with the belt replacement. Do a search and find one similar to yours, many models of MTD mowers are about the same.

 

[In Utopia]

Yep, the oils remain after the plant is dead. Even the smoke from burning is horrible. A neighbor burned a bunch of brush in her back yard and she looked like someone beat her with a baseball bat. The oil is the culprit and is a lot more reactive when the vines are blooming.

Well I learned something yesterday. Been keeping the stuff at bay for years by spraying the ground and as high up the trees I could. What I didn't know is that the vine had gone up into the canopy of the tree and I never saw it. Called my tree guy out and we got to looking close and then something we saw blew my mind. The base of the vine is about 5-6" inches in diameter. Plan is to cut it at the base and douse it with boiling water and then cover it with rock salt. It seems to be a consensus to kill the base. My tree guy has a couple of guys who are not allergic to it to clean up and clean up what feel down on my side of the fence. My plan now is to go in there completely in hazmat type gear find any vine I see, cut out a 1' section of the vine and hit the base with the water and salt. Meanwhile I finally got the wife to go to the Urgent Care center this am for treatment. Her eyes were almost completely swollen shut.
Nasty stuff for sure.

 

[S-G-R]

Taking a break from mowing.

 

[NCL4701]

Well I learned something yesterday. Been keeping the stuff at bay for years by spraying the ground and as high up the trees I could. What I didn't know is that the vine had gone up into the canopy of the tree and I never saw it. Called my tree guy out and we got to looking close and then something we saw blew my mind. The base of the vine is about 5-6" inches in diameter. Plan is to cut it at the base and douse it with boiling water and then cover it with rock salt. It seems to be a consensus to kill the base. My tree guy has a couple of guys who are not allergic to it to clean up and clean up what feel down on my side of the fence. My plan now is to go in there completely in hazmat type gear find any vine I see, cut out a 1' section of the vine and hit the base with the water and salt. Meanwhile I finally got the wife to go to the Urgent Care center this am for treatment. Her eyes were almost completely swollen shut.
Nasty stuff for sure.

Cut a 1’ section near the base. That will kill it. Whatever else you do won’t help or hurt, but removing the 1’ section as you are planning will kill it. Even if you’re allergic, that’s pretty easy with a bush axe. One hard hit high, another low, push the blade in sideways between the vine and tree, then twist to pop out the 1’ section. If you don’t remove the 1’ section, sometimes it will survive. You get to stay about 3’ away throughout the process.

Keep the bush axe head down in a bucket if you carry it in a vehicle. Wash the bush axe and bucket before putting them away. That method has worked for me for the last few decades.

Hate your wife is so bad off with it. Hopefully they’ll get her enough steroids to get her back to normal quickly.

Edit: Definitely don’t saw it if you’re allergic at all.