Let's talk flail mowers

[Ryan03]

We run Alamo brand flail mowers exclusively at work. Some are hydraulic drive {batwing}, and some are PTO{3pt}. We primarily cut roadside ditches amd freeway medians. We run double sided Y blades, and buy them by the 55 gallon drum. One nice thing about them is that they are reversible, so when one side is shot, you simply remove and flip them. The biggest Flail mower advic that I can give is keep those rear Roller and cutter drum bearings swimming in grease. You would be suprised how much time they spend under water and how many contaminents are constantly being thrown at them. We recently began converting over to Vogel auto grease systems, and once we got them calibrated properly, we went from 1 set of roller bearings and 3 or so cutter drum bearings a season to per unit to 5 bearings all together for the entire fleet of 12.

[GinNB]

You can get knife sharpeners that'll sharpen them right on the cuttershaft and undoubtedly be much faster/safer than the vicegrips/minigrinder approach. That being said, we usually use them until they're too dull/worn to be of much use and then replace them.

[IslandTractor]

On a related topic brought up earlier in this thread....the tendency of the Caroni flail gearbox to puke oil from the gearbox due to the gears throwing it directly up on the vent cap....I have finally found the correct fitting to put an extension piece on the gearbox. Size is 16mm x1.5 mm threads to match the dipstick. Source was British Metrics. Address is on one of the photos below. Works perfectly. With the dipstick in the extension the very bottom of the dipstick shows oil if you had it filled to the top fill line without the extension. No oil spillage at all once the extender is put in. Cost was about $10 plus shipping as I recall.

[Flatheadyoungin]

i pulled up a stool, got my tools beside me and took a flapper wheel and 4.5 angle grinder

i just wanted to get outside.....took me two hour and a half evenings.....

the flapper wheel seemed to be easier to control and seemed to remove less material......cleaner edge..

i did all 88 blades, both sides!

i was proud that i saved money and that i have the other edge ready for next time.......replaced a few pins that needed it.....

made a WORLD of difference on how it cuts, and how much power it requires.....

i cut my 50x100 front yard with it out by the main road.....remember the old john deere commercials that said, "you can cut your yard 3.8 seconds" (they showed some huge tractor on some small groomed yard.

my neighbors ran out on the front porch to see all the commotion!

redneck in the suburbs!

[GinNB]

Ryan, I got an interesting piece of advice from Doug Bragg of Doug Bragg Enterprises (they make superduty mowers for blueberry service) a couple of months ago. He said that the NTN cuttershaft bearings were rated by NTN to survive mower duty for 3000hrs with NO GREASING! The rubber seals kept dirt, water, etc out extremely well, but that they usually started failing around 1000hrs if customers started greasing them. Doug knows of one mower that was just getting in need of cuttershaft bearings now after 8000!?!? hours of service. I, of course, found this out AFTER we started greasing ours, but I'm going to put caps instead of grease nipples on some of our stuff as it gets rebuilt to see what happens. I'm not sure how that'll work on roller bearings because they sit in the crud and the seals get nicked and dinged with rocks/twigs/string/garbage all the time.

[Ryan03]

I can see how the grease may attract contaminents that may otherwise not stick to the bearings and seals. We have always just tried to grease them often. Please keep me informed on your findings with capping the fittings on your rebuilt mowers. I would love to find a way to get that kind of life out of our bearings.

[Hooked_on_HP]

Wow great thread. I've been reading this thread off and on for two days. One question I havent seen asked (unless I missed it) is does a flail form any suction to lift up the grass after the tractor tires push it down.

[IslandTractor]

Originally Posted by Hooked_on_HP

Wow great thread. I've been reading this thread off and on for two days. One question I havent seen asked (unless I missed it) is does a flail form any suction to lift up the grass after the tractor tires push it down.

I don't know about suction but I cannot see my tire marks after running over grass with the flail.

[Iron Horse]

Originally Posted by Hooked_on_HP

Wow great thread. I've been reading this thread off and on for two days. One question I havent seen asked (unless I missed it) is does a flail form any suction to lift up the grass after the tractor tires push it down.

I don't know how much suction Y knives have but cast hammers have heaps of suction . Which does suck the flatened grass up to meet the cutters . The only time i have trouble with missing whippy sticks is when they are long enough to be held down by the wheels as the mower passes over them . Once the wheels are off them they partially stand back up and they only get thier tops cut off . If this happens , after i'm done mowing i select a higher gear and run around in the opposite direction and hit them again . Because of their angle they get feed straight into the chamber .

[Iron Horse]

There , 600