| Author | Message | ||
     Ourdee |
I picked up a JS40 back in 06. It has served me well with minimal service. My new yard is still small enough to use it for.  But, playing Craig's list I found a TORO 15/38 for $50. 1/10th the price of my JS40. Steering was shot. P.O. parked it a year ago after talking S.O. into a fancy zero turn. I picked it up and bought a part for $1.98. A weld, a grind, and I cut my yard with it today. It has a key switch in front of the seat to bypass the reverse shut off when the deck is running.  I'm still looking for a 60s era 5hp hard tire rider with the engine between your legs. I want to swap the running gear out with go kart parts and a two speed final drive. What kind of big or little mowers do you have? | ||
| Slaughter |
BRUTES, ALL OF YOU! Every blade of grass, every dandelion is a life! | ||
| 86129squids |
Lawn Boy self-propelled pusher, BUT the dang ring and pinion drive for the self-propel took a dump. Now it's MY-self propelled. Love it though, starts after the first pull, even after sitting all winter. Gotta blow a Bennie to fix it, which WILL happen... | ||
| Jaimec |
I won't do it myself. I hire assassins. | ||
| Zane |
I have a Toro with a Kohler 6.75 HP engine. The lawnmower it self is fine but the Kohler engine is a dog. I'm in Phoenix now so the yard is rocked in and there is no grass to cut. When I was in Michigan and Texas where the machine was actually used it would need a carb rebuild/replace about every 10 to 12 cuttings. Kohler uses a cheap Chinese carb and it's a piece of crap. I'll never buy another Kohler engine again. From now on it's Briggs & Stratten or Honda. Do not waste money on a Kolher engine. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Husqvarna 22hp 46in cut garden tractor with mulching kit. The grass assassins here cost way too much, they're the ones that do the snow removal in the winter, shysters. | ||
| Strokizator |
Got a 24hp Snapper tractor with 42" deck that came with the house.but jonesing for a 60" zero turn. The $4000 starting price has me thinking I'll keep what I have for awhile. | ||
| Hootowl |
Pulling the trigger on a JD x350 (or better, but still in the 3 series, I think) this weekend. I tire of the screaming, so I want to get it done faster. The grass, not me (although I think if I screamed while mowing, I'd grow weary of it quickly). The ZTR mowers are fast, but they can put "turning ruts", for lack of a better term, in your lawn, since turning is accomplished by differential rear wheel rotation. The pros use them because they're fast. I can handle going 1-2 MPH slower in trade for not damaging my lawn. I have one of those "southern lawns" that's not really grass, but a vine. They're generally planted in sand, and mine is no exception. It's easy to make ruts. I'm playing it safe. | ||
| Hootowl |
The 3+ series tractors are heavy duty enough to pull carts, sweepers, water filled rollers, and push a blade. They're sort of half way between a riding mower and a tractor. The higher models have 4wd and 4ws. Weee! | ||
| Hughlysses |
 A Kubota T-1560 I scored on Craigslist last year for $200. 40 inch cut and a 14 HP Kawasaki engine. Looked like the oil hadn't been changed in years when I got it. Deck bearings were howling, and all 3 belts were shot. I put a new battery in it, tuned up the engine, replaced all the belts and deck bearings, patched some sand-eroded holes in the deck, and did a couple of oil changes. It's great; certainly better than anything I could have bought for less than ~$2000. | ||
| Sifo |
Self-propelled Toro. It's a mechanism that adjusts speed with how far the handle is pushed forward. It's great when it's working. The drive gears have a short life span though. My new lawn has some really steep parts that are just killing the drive gears! It's got a Briggs & Stratton engine that starts easily every time. Funny thing, my mom had a Toro with a B&S engine that quit running. I told her I would take a look at it. I was really stumped on what was going on for a while. Every once in a while it could fire up and run for a few seconds. Valve motion just didn't seem right at all though, but it would run every once in a while.  I finally split the crank case open to see what was going on. Damned if they don't use a plastic cam shaft, and it broke a tooth off the cam gear. I wouldn't mind that so much if you could service the cam without a complete tear down, but it's just not worth the labor to fix something like that. Even B&S engines have become disposable and built with incredibly cheap parts. | ||
| Swampy |
Honda HHR 21 self propelled https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnkUpmIjN0A&t=79s Love the thing, mows great, drives great, picks up leaves and clippings like a shop vac...but trying to pull the thing backwards sometimes the drive gears lock and makes for a miserable experience. Had it back to the dealer multiple times, they experienced the problem but the factory said it was user error. F Honda | ||
| Tootal |
Husqvarna 4" radius rear steering 42" cut. It has a Kohler 15.5 hp engine that I love. It uses no oil and the oil stays clean forever. The deck is in front and can be easily pulled out and stood up for easy cleaning. It was a Lowes version which had the Kohler instead of the Kawasaki. Also the bearings they used were cheap but they are all the same size so I got 17 bearings and replaced them all and have not done anything since. That was 8 years ago! | ||
| Ourdee |
Hugh, Man after my own heart. If I could, I'd have a Scag Turf Tiger 2 72". I worked for free one summer just so I could play on the Scag. Foot deep grass at 10 mph is a monster. The JS40 just makes the front yard look good. But it sure was nice to sit down and cut today. | ||
| Ratbuell |
Cub Cadet Z-force steering wheel zero turn. Kohler v-twin 25hp, fabricated 60" deck, steering front wheels AND variable-rear-drive-steering (via dual-hydro drive). No ruts, no holes, no burnouts in the grass. I do 3 acres (hilly, moderate obstacles) in just under one hour. 1 acre, short manicure cut; 2 acres, tall field cut. Thing I like about the steering wheel is, I don't have to be bar-ninja to run it across a hill. The front wheels actually steer, they're not just swivel casters. Combined with the rear dual-hydro system, it's almost like 4 wheel steer. Cuts great at WFO, too. And it'll mow in reverse. | ||
| Britchri10 |
A timely thread: I just moved house and now have c1 acre of grass. I cut it Sunday (fathers Day) with my trusty 18in deck walk behind Honda. It only took five hours in the Florida Heat... Have now purchased a Husqvana 42in cut lawn tractor w/a 18.5HP engine. It gets delivered Friday. Hopefully, it'll cut the yard a good deal quicker than the Honda. Chris C | ||
| Chauly |
Kubota F-2560 25 hp diesel, 60" front deck, 4wd, rear steer, hydrostatic drive.  | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I would wager that the Kubota cost more that what I typically drive to work. | ||
| Hootowl |
Must...not...be...jealous...Must...resist...Must.. .ArghH!!!! | ||
| Ourdee |
That is the beast. | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
I'll have to snap some pics of my weapons tonight. One I am particularly pleased with is my old homelite straight shaft trimmer with "enhanced cutting capabilities". | ||
| Chauly |
I couldn't cut grass with the Smart Car, hence the F-... | ||
| Balloyd66 |
My BCS 853 tractor with the 38" mower attachment. I still prefer a walk-behind since I sit on my rump all day.  | ||
| Sifo |
Somehow this seems fitting here...  | ||
| Glitch |
For the house in Gwinnett there's only an acre, so I've got the cheapest mower I could find, a Murray, 22" cut. At the Homestead: For the orchard, we've got a John Deere D125, with a 42" cut. For the pasture, roads, pretty much anything else, we've got a Kubota BX25 with a Bush Hog (and a front end loader, and a back hoe  ) Sifo  | ||
| Glitch |
Brent, I used to have a Gravely configured like your walkbehind. Only it had a sickle blade. | ||
| Sifo |
I still have the Gravely walk behind my dad used. He had the rotary blade, a sickle blade and a snow blower. I should look into getting that thing running again just for grins! He used to have the trailer seat hook up with the old school tractor seat. I learned real fast not to turn in the dips or the handle bars dig right into your thighs. | ||
| Etennuly |
I bought my 12 acre place in Tennessee in '99. Moved here from 17 years of Florida where I spent a great deal of time on golf courses. So naturally I engage in a weekly fight with mother nature to try to attain that golf course look out in the country. I started knocking down the pasture weeds for the first seven years with a JD 790 30hp diesel 4x4 with a 5' bush hog. I kept modifying the bush hog to cut like a finish mower. It did pretty good. Then in '06 came a new Ulysses, and a new Johndeere 3520 4x4 37 hp diesel with a 7 Iron belly mount finish mower. As I recall that was the last year that I heard my accountant say that I needed to spend money somewhere.  If the grass is not too deep, with freshly sharpened blades, and me feeling up to it, I can mow at 8 MPH with this 6' deck and get a nice finish. I named this mower deck my "grass pump" for the way it will lay it out. Of course this tractor has a lot of other work that it does for me. I have a 48" cut L130 JD for mowing around smaller areas, but as of late I do most of my trimming with a 16 gallon electric sprayer in the bucket of the 3520. It is much faster, more efficient, and easier than the small tractor or running my Honda 4 stroke weed eater. | ||
| Balloyd66 |
I've heard about the Gravely tractor/attachment system. My father-in-law says they were real beasts. Don't know why they stopped making them. Seems like a good idea. I have the mower, rotary plow, and dozer blade. They have many more attachments and of course, I want one of everything. | ||
| Chauly |
If you have a knucklehead in your garage, you'd be right at home with a Gravely; they each had a Fairbanks-Morse magneto with a low-speed clockwork inside for startup. It made for an amusing moment when the mechanic next to me was setting the valve clearance on a model L. I heard the click-click-click of the mag winding up, then the snap of it as an arc lept from the spark lead to his elbow. Such a howl! |
