Josh-nhihguy
Member
I'm hoping my pictures come through and so a little background, last year my dad and I cut road ditches using the 450 with a 100 Fast Hitch balanced head mower. Somewhere between 60-80 bales worth so definitely worth sticking some time and money into for us. Got to thinking how it went last year and realized that things didn't go quite as smooth as I remembered. It's time to get it up to snuff for this upcoming year and I'm hoping you great folks here have some pointers.
The sickle rattles. It will never be confused for a quiet machine. The mower is loud. I don't know how quiet it should sound normally or if this can be fixed with just new guards or what all I should be looking at.
We had a lot of problems with grass getting stuck in the outer shoe area. It would cut but then bunch up and get stuck in the holes of the shoe and sometimes between the shoe and bar and guard on the end. The grass deflector would sometimes help but the grass wouldn't always slide up and tip over the way it should.
And lastly when the mower bunches up and plugs I can't raise the bar very high. This mower doesn't have a cylinder to raise the bar. When I raise the Fast Hitch it lifts the bar only about 6" off the ground out on the end of the bar and maybe 12" off the ground under the mower. Maybe I'm missing something but we thought about adding the cylinder lift if possible to make it easier to get out of the jams. I think I asked this question last summer but of course I lost the replies. The location of where I hook up the chain might be wrong.
So overall I don't know if I'm looking at rebuilding the bar or if the bar itself is shot also. I've heard someone on YT say that Rowse Rakes is a good place to go for parts. I'll be working on parts for now and when it gets a little nicer here in the next few weeks hopefully get to turning wrenches. Let me know what you all think. Thanks for the help!
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto12256.jpg"/>
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto12257.jpg"/>
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto12258.jpg"/>
The sickle rattles. It will never be confused for a quiet machine. The mower is loud. I don't know how quiet it should sound normally or if this can be fixed with just new guards or what all I should be looking at.
We had a lot of problems with grass getting stuck in the outer shoe area. It would cut but then bunch up and get stuck in the holes of the shoe and sometimes between the shoe and bar and guard on the end. The grass deflector would sometimes help but the grass wouldn't always slide up and tip over the way it should.
And lastly when the mower bunches up and plugs I can't raise the bar very high. This mower doesn't have a cylinder to raise the bar. When I raise the Fast Hitch it lifts the bar only about 6" off the ground out on the end of the bar and maybe 12" off the ground under the mower. Maybe I'm missing something but we thought about adding the cylinder lift if possible to make it easier to get out of the jams. I think I asked this question last summer but of course I lost the replies. The location of where I hook up the chain might be wrong.
So overall I don't know if I'm looking at rebuilding the bar or if the bar itself is shot also. I've heard someone on YT say that Rowse Rakes is a good place to go for parts. I'll be working on parts for now and when it gets a little nicer here in the next few weeks hopefully get to turning wrenches. Let me know what you all think. Thanks for the help!
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto12256.jpg"/>
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto12257.jpg"/>
<image src="http://forums.yesterdaystractors.com/photos/mvphoto12258.jpg"/>