JD No. 5 Mower

The mower has a metal grass board with a metal bar to direct the hay away from the end. Seems a little short to me. Is this an option?
I also found two old wooden grass boards that I could use.
The fescue is pretty high mixed with Orchard grass and Lespedeza (sp?).
Once it slows down raining, I don't want to stop to change things. Which should I use.

As far as mounting the JD No. 5, I got all the measurements from the web site below. Mine was originally on a JD B with a foot lift. I still had the cabeling and also the hand lift is still installed. There was a quick tach option available, but might be hard to find now.
Link
Look toward the bottom of the opening page to Mounting JD No. 5 mower.

As far as attaching to my JD 430 I made two short drawbar extensions to attach to the mower for the right distances as given on the web site for clearances beind the wheel and offset to the side. I attached the lift cable to the 3-pt. to lift. Haven't used it much yet because of the rain, but everything seemed OK in a short test run.

Your uncle put that metal board on there for a reason.

The wood ones just weren't that stout and would easily break in heavy folage; especially alfalfa.

We did the same trick; the rod we made out of 3/4" stock and gave it a bit of a "throw-back" curve. We made the rod about 20 to 24" long which was shorter than the original wood one by a long shot.

It worked just fine as the forward momentum "rolled" the crop much like a plow 'rolls' the dirt. It stopped our running to town to buy a new board every so often.

Hope this helps,

Allan