Shopping for front tine tiller

Greenfrog

Member
My old toro went south after 40 years.
Did search for front tine tillers
Cub cadet looks good. But specs don't tell kind of engine or horse power. Anybody know?
Troy built looks very similar.
Any other recommendations out there?
Thanks in advance.
 
What went wrong with the old Toro?

If it is repairable, chances are it is better built that the new ones!

If it is a chain drive, and suddenly stopped turning, chances are the chain broke. That is a common failure, especially if it hit a rock or root and locked up the tines.

Involves a little work, but nothing difficult, chain readily available.
 

Why you would want a front tine when you can get a rear tine, I don't understand. Soooooo much easier to use and do a better job too.
 
(quoted from post at 05:19:17 07/14/17)
Why you would want a front tine when you can get a rear tine, I don't understand. Soooooo much easier to use and do a better job too.

I have a rear tine tiller. I have no intentions of getting rid of it, but sometimes a front tine tiller will do stuff that a rear tine will not.
 
Check out a honda rototiller. You will never be sorry you bought it. Easy starting adjustable widths from 36" down to 16. A 6 year old kid can run it. Try getting a 6 year old to turn a troybuilt around... Not going to happen.
 
Why front tine? Just curious. I have a 50-60 year-old Troy built rear-tine that still works fine. But it is way too heavy for me to maneuver in tight garden rows to cultivate. Especially for hilling potatoes. Tractor Supply had a 16" rear-tine Cub Cadet on sale for $350 so I tried it. Very rare for me to buy something new. I love this thing. Light enough to horse around in tight rows. Chinese engine starts first pull. An amazingly simple machine. Only downside is there is not easy easy way to disengage the wheels. So it is slow glowing from one garden spot to another in self-propelled mode.

I assume your old machine had a belt on the camshaft extension for reverse? Why not just stick on a new $99 HF engine and leave out reverse?
 

Parents had a mantis for years. Was a great tiller when it would run, but that thing was finicky. Needed more maintenance every year than anything else. Thai one locked up a few years ago, so now they have an earthquake one. It's really surprising what you can get done with such a small tiller.

Donovan from Wisconsin
 
You are not going to get HP ratings anymore, due to the fact that the engine manufacturers have been inflating HP ratings on small engines for decades, and someone finally brought a class action suit.

How much HP do you need? An old "3.5HP" flathead Briggs was enough to run our front tine tiller in stony ground at any speed you wanted. We *HATED* running it because you were always fighting it and it was always fighting you.
 
Don't make them anymore. Parts unavailable. My Arens has a Honda on it. Very satisfactory, but no reverse. Suppose I could re-engineer with a round figure 8 belt. I am glad to be rid of the Briggs. Nothing but trouble. Don't ever want another front tine either. Had two, one was a Gilson. They'll beat up on you. Get a rear tine.
 
If your old tiller was rated 3 1/2 horse, it was around 150-170 ccs. If 5 horse, around 230-240 ccs. New engines with overhead valves can make the same power when 10% smaller.

Actual horsepower ratings haven't really changed. The lawsuit about ratings with small engines but more about the machines the engines were on, and not the engines themselves. That and the general public not knowing the difference between "net', "gross", or "continuous" horsepower.

A 170 cc Briggs flathead from the 70s was rated 3.4 horse continuous, 4 horse max, and 5.9 lbs. of torque at 3000 RPM

A new Honda overhead-valve 163 cc engine is rated 4.8 horse max net horse, and 7.6 lbs. of torque at 2500 RPM.
 
(quoted from post at 21:09:48 07/14/17) Get a Mantis for small jobs.

+1,and fix the rear tine. I've used front tine a couple of times; unless you're in sand or loam, it'll beat you to death.
 

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