Broke a v belt on my mower today

[armylifer]

I was out moving some rocks from our garden, to the back of our property today. This is a normal part of yard maintenance for us. We have the rockiest 5 acres that I have ever seen. Anyway, one thing that I always do when I move rock to the back part of the property is to use the MMM to cut small brush or scotch broom as I am returning for another load.

Well, today I was mowing an area that has never been touched since probably forever (at least since we bought the property 3 years ago). I heard that awful sound that tells you that you are going to have to sharpen the blades again so I cut off the mower and continued hauling rocks for the next hour. I did not think too much about it because it is a regular weekly occurrence for me to hit some rocks while mowing areas that I have not been able to clear yet.

Anyway, after finishing up with hauling the rocks that grew in the garden over the winter, I was putting the tractor back in the garage when I heard something scraping the concrete as I drove. I stopped and looked under the tractor and found a piece of metal rod about 3/8ths inch thick and about 3 feet long curled up and tangled in my mower blades.

I had such a hard time trying to get that rod untangled from my mower blades. I had to heat the rod to be able to bend it enough to untangle it from the mower blades. This stuff did not look like rebar but it was at least as thick and at least as strong.

I inspected my mower and discovered that the v belt was snapped clean through and just laying on top of the mower deck. The spring for the tension pulley was also just laying on top of the mower deck. I was very fortunate that I did not have any more permanent damage to the mower. I was also fortunate that my dealer had a new v belt in stock and I was able to fix and test the mower today.

I have never see a v belt cut so cleanly before in all of my life. I am grateful that it did break before any more damage was done to the mower. I am going to re-think multi tasking and trying to do two jobs at the same time; at least until I can get the brush all cleared from the back of my property.

 

[aeronutt]

You might consider running a root grapple or other spikey implement through that area to stir up the soil and raise the rocks. You'll never get all the rocks, but you could at least get the big ones that are just under the surface. It would also give you a chance to smooth out the area and get good grass planted.

The belt breaking seems like a good safety fuse to prevent excess forces from destroying more expensive parts. I've never had one break clean like that, but I have had them slip/smoke/shred and come off the pulley. Those events result in buying a new belt too. I decided to keep a spare on hand after the 3rd time it happened to me and haven't needed it since. Go figure.

 

[armylifer]

I need to clear all the cottonwood trees and blackberry brush out before I even start to think about getting the rocks out.

Before this house was built, this property was the dumping ground for all of the rocks that were cleared from the other properties in the neighborhood. When they finally got around to building this house they just bulldozed all of the rocks that they dumped in here and made the property flat. They hauled in a few hundred yards of fill dirt and planted some fast growing grass to get something that looked like a yard. The people that owned the house before us never did anything to the yard and it got overgrown with all manner of weeds and brush.

Now my wife and I are trying to make something that looks nice but it takes a lot of time and energy. We will continue to do a little improvement project each week and still maintain what we have already completed. I wanted to pass on this property but my wife persuaded me to buy it. She has a dream and I just do what she instructs me to. I get to do all of the tractor work and she provides the vision. It all works out in the end.

 

[D2Cat]

From your description it sounds like you got your mower wrapped up with an metal rod used for electric fencing. They're usually about 3' long, 3/8" dia. and have a triangular spade about 10" from one end when new, but the spade may have gotten knocked off at sometime.

Give us a couple of pictures of the area you are working and maybe we can give you an idea or two that might help.

 

[armylifer]

D2Cat, Your description of the rod is exact.

I have attached a picture that shows the king of soil that I have here. This is how the whole yard looks. I think that I am just going to have to truck in about 500 yards of top soil and seed it. I am not going to do all that at one time. My plan is to do a little at a time working from the house outward. I figure that in 5 years or so this yard should look fairly good.

 

[D2Cat]

Are you hand picking the rocks and throwing them in the loader bucket? Then hauling them to your dump area?

Looks to me like you need to come up with something like this.

https://boise.craigslist.org/grd/5481321934.html

You can gather quite a pile, then scoop them up and move them.

 

[armylifer]

Are you hand picking the rocks and throwing them in the loader bucket? Then hauling them to your dump area?

Looks to me like you need to come up with something like this.

https://boise.craigslist.org/grd/5481321934.html

You can gather quite a pile, then scoop them up and move them.

I am picking them up by hand. I saw a rock bucket on this website a couple of years ago. By the the time I decided to buy it the website that it was on went away. I don't know what happened to that site. I forgot the name of it even. It had a rock bucket made especially for the BX series tractors. If I could find a rock bucket like the one that I saw a couple of years ago I would probably buy it.

I borrowed a rock rake from a friend of mine a couple of years ago and tried using it but the result was way less than satisfactory. That was when I bought the box scraper. The box scraper worked real well for digging up the rocks, no complaint there. However, I just never seem to run out of rocks. So, I have pretty much given up on digging out rocks anywhere except the garden.

 

[D2Cat]

When material is spread like the builder/neighbors did it makes it difficult to resurrect. With the rake I posted the link to, you could add a couple of legs going straight back from the top with wheels on the far end to use as depth gauges.

This is way too big, but gives the idea I was trying to describe. Then you could keep from just going deeper and deeper digging up more rocks.

https://boise.craigslist.org/grd/5480926300.html

I have had a similar project. Had some oil tanks at my farm and the lease owner moved them across the road. Left me with all the rock the had hauled in to build the road for the trucks to pick up oil. I scraped up piles (with a crawler..can't tell you what size!)moved them to the desired location with my tractor loader. Then used a 7' rake to continue with the smaller stuff.

I got it pretty good. Then dumped a couple loads of processed hay (dirt pile manure) and spread. I can now mow it with a disc mower and never have a problem.

 

[HickoryNut]

I am picking them up by hand. I saw a rock bucket on this website a couple of years ago. By the the time I decided to buy it the website that it was on went away. I don't know what happened to that site. I forgot the name of it even. It had a rock bucket made especially for the BX series tractors. If I could find a rock bucket like the one that I saw a couple of years ago I would probably buy it.

I borrowed a rock rake from a friend of mine a couple of years ago and tried using it but the result was way less than satisfactory. That was when I bought the box scraper. The box scraper worked real well for digging up the rocks, no complaint there. However, I just never seem to run out of rocks. So, I have pretty much given up on digging out rocks anywhere except the garden.

I believe that company was AI2, it is/was listed on the Home page for this site. I have found very few (none I could justify) sources for a rock bucket for the BX. What I did find were are all too heavy for the BX.

Here is one ... http://www.orangeaftermarket.com/Standard-Rock-Bucket-For-Kubota-BX-Series--48-_p_4352.html

 

[armylifer]

D2Cat, As I mentioned earlier, I tried using a rock rake that I borrowed and it just did not have enough weight on it to rake up the rocks. The smallest rocks that I have are about fist size and most are head sized. I have dug up many that weighed more than my bucket could handle. Those are now burn pit 1 and burn pit 2. I know that it is hard to tell the size of the rocks that I am dealing with in the picture that I posted earlier but the ones that you see poking above ground are just a very small portion of the rest of the rock that is below the surface. I have attached two pictures that should give you a better idea of what I am working with. The picture of the burn pit 1 shows what size some of the bigger rocks are and the other picture is one of my dump sites. That one dump site used to be a ditch but now it is all rock.

HickoryNut; Thanks for the link. That rock bucket is almost like the one that I was thinking about buying. I found the link to that website that used to sell the rock bucket that I mentioned in an earlier post. That website was http://www.jariusa.com/kubota_attachments.html The website is no longer operating. The domain is for sale.

 

[D2Cat]

Partner, you need to put an ad on CL for smooth "river rock". Folks will come and buy it for decorative spots!

If you're going to end up with grass you'll need enough top soil to support the seed even through a dry period. Might have to use your box blade to keep working those lunkers out. But a rock rake would help with the 3" and smaller.

I'd still say, find a nearby farmer with a pile he's cleaned out of his barn/feedlot a couple of years ago and top it off.

 

[armylifer]

Partner, you need to put an ad on CL for smooth "river rock". Folks will come and buy it for decorative spots!

If you're going to end up with grass you'll need enough top soil to support the seed even through a dry period. Might have to use your box blade to keep working those lunkers out. But a rock rake would help with the 3" and smaller.

I'd still say, find a nearby farmer with a pile he's cleaned out of his barn/feedlot a couple of years ago and top it off.

I tried to give away about 75,000 pounds of those rocks. No takers. I am not sure how many yards that equals but it is at least 150 buckets full of rock from my LA203 loader on the BX1860. I even offered to load the rocks for anyone that wanted it. That river rock is so common out here that no one thinks it is decorative.

 

[aeronutt]

I tried to give away ... no one thinks it is decorative.

There's a rock store in Omaha, NE that specializes in selling those type of decorative rocks. No, I'm not kidding. They bring in semi-loads of rocks neatly bundled and packed on pallets. Your burn pit 1 picture shows about $600 - $1000 worth of "decorative landscaping". Crazy, huh? Now if only you had a way to haul 75K lbs of rocks halfway across the country...

 

[armylifer]

There's a rock store in Omaha, NE that specializes in selling those type of decorative rocks. No, I'm not kidding. They bring in semi-loads of rocks neatly bundled and packed on pallets. Your burn pit 1 picture shows about $600 - $1000 worth of "decorative landscaping". Crazy, huh? Now if only you had a way to haul 75K lbs of rocks halfway across the country...

Yeah, one man's trash is another man's treasure. I can't give the damn things away and someone else is selling them for a premium. I would still give them away to any takers. If that 75,000 pounds is not enough for someone, I'll let them dig all they want out the ground for free. Almost every yard in this neighborhood has at least one huge rock at the entrance to their driveway. I have one in front of my driveway that is nowhere as big as my neighbor's across the street. None of these rocks was brought in from elsewhere. They were all dug up on site. I have attached two pictures. One is a picture of the big driveway rock in my yard and the other picture is showing what we have done with some of the rocks that have some decorative value to us. You can only put just so many rocks in a garden before you may as well not have any plants at all.