Problem solved with ride-on

[Andy Mac]

Hello there,
Just thought I'd share a win I had today, with my ride-on mower. It's a Victa with a 41" dual cutter deck and has always been a pretty ordinary machine. In any thing other than short grass it would play up: the cut grass built-up very quickly, jam the blades which would cause the belt to slip and me to stop the machine to clear it. And of course wore out out the odd V-belt. Progress was always slow, and I learned to edge slowly into long grass, wait for rpm to rise again etc etc, or run over the lot first with the whipper snipper. A right PITA:((. I put it down to a poorly designed belt system (which seems unduly complicated and prone to slippage), and maybe the thing is meant to do a cosmetic job on already manicured lawns ie. suburban ones
Anyway, I realised the build up of grass always happened at the far end of each blade, and jammed the stuff against the guard of the deck, where the clearance is about 10-15mm. So today I had enough, dropped the whole deck and turned it upside down and reached for the angle grinder. I cut the end of each blade at an angle, leaving the cutting face intact and tapered it by about 6mm. I thought of it as the relief grind on a drill bit, or lathe tool.
The difference is AMAZING!! It's like a whole new bloody machine! I can now drive into long grass and it does what I always expected a ride-on to do!!:- Makes me wonder why blades aren't produced like that, from the manufacturer?! I'll definitely do this mod on any blade I buy in future.
Maybe this will help someone else.

Cheers

[Ironwood]

Thanks for the headsup Andy.
I will have a look at my blades , they are due to be changed anyway.

[joe greiner]

A great tip (no pun intended).

Here's another:

On trailers with removable drop-down tailgate ramps, the hinge pins are the same length. Easy to assemble by two workers in the factory, but not so great for the single user. I cut about 3mm from the end of one pin, so that one person can re-assemble: Engage the longer pin in its barrel, with minimum engagement, and use that purchase as a fulcrum to engage the other, then drive to final position.

Cheers,
Joe

[Oldneweng]

Re Different length hinge pins. Same with removable tailgates, gates etc.

I had a similar problem with a Rover mower. What type of blades are in use? I was told by guy in local shop that I should be using at least two blades that have raised trailing edges to create air movement. This fixed my problem. The grass is not thrown out by the force of the blades but by air flow through the deck. I was going to fit angled steel to the blade disk to create air current but did not have to as this advice saved the day. SWMBO recently bought a new set after running over something that destroyed the blades and all 4 were angled. When the rear angle wears out time for replacement.

Dean

[John Saxton]

I do carry a spare set of blades for the ride-on and as soon as the ones on the mower start to fail in performance I change tham and tidy the old set up with an angle grinder.
Its an expensive exercise buying new sets of blades for the John Deere so getting as much out of the old ones that can be tuned to perform reasonably well goes without saying.

Cheers:)