Horsepower question.

notjustair · Nov 3, 2015

I have two of the same mower - a Marty J zero turn. I use one over the other because I hate the Briggs twin in one of them. It about cooks you off the mower (you sit with the engine under you). It doesn't run bad, it just runs warm.

Anyway, I've decided to make a spray rig with the unused mower. I'm going to mount the 15 gallon tank and boom from the yard sprayer.

My question is - how much horsepower do you think it would take to run the wheel motors? They are Eaton hydro units if that matters. I have a 6.5 horse sitting around and wondered if it would work. The deck is off the mower (it is like a finish mower on wheels). The only thing it would be hauling is me and the water tank.

ShadetreeRet · Nov 3, 2015

Personally, I feel that 6.5 hp may be a little shy of sufficient, since there two-? pulling motors. On the other hand, Sears sold a Custom six hp with a 36" deck and it would cut grass with a 200+ lb. person riding and driving it. The sprayer part should not require that much power. Keep in mind that the first Sears Suburban with Hydro was 12 HP.

504 · Nov 3, 2015

Back in the 70s Massey Ferguson claimed it too 1 HP to run its hydro static mowers, so 2hp would leave you a little under powered. But I would use what I had on hand, and look for a bigger motor later if I needed it. There are a lot of 12 hp mowers out there for 100.00.

Tom Arnold · Nov 4, 2015

The least amount of HP that I would want, would be 10, just to make sure that the tractor was never under-powered, not matter what the terrain. I agree with 504 and ShadetreeRet that it does not take very much HP to propel the tractor...on dead flat ground. But once you are on uneven ground, traversing across grass and going up a grade, the amount of HP needed begins to climb. Your spray unit (fully filled) will add 200 LBS to the tractor and it will also affect the center of gravity, so be careful if you have to spray on grades.

Why not put some heat shielding on the existing engine and just go with that?

timcasbolt · Nov 4, 2015

I'll just leave this here: Most of those engines that came out in the 80's and 90's with 5.5 hp, 6.5 hp, 6.75 hp, etc. were involved in the lawsuit about overstating hp ratings on small engines. I doubt that any of them made more than 5 hp.

Horsepower question.

notjustair

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ShadetreeRet

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504

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Tom Arnold

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timcasbolt

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