Rotary Cutter Shake Rattle & Roll

[floridafly]

One thing I love about my wife is she is willing to help around the farm. One thing I hate about my wife is she is willing to help around the farm. She has a bad habit of tearing up equipment. This past weekend she went on a joy ride with her New Holland and 5ft rotary cutter. Yesterday I went to use the same rig and the cutter was making a terrible racket and shaking the entire tractor. I took a quick look at the blades and nothing jumped out at me. Another quick look at the shaft and Ujoint, everthinkg looked normal. Gearbox - OK.

Any ideas on what I should check. I was thinking about taking one piece of the cutter at a time and replace it to see if could isolate the problem, that is all I know to do.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

[magicheater]

One thing I love about my wife is she is willing to help around the farm. One thing I hate about my wife is she is willing to help around the farm. She has a bad habit of tearing up equipment. This past weekend she went on a joy ride with her New Holland and 5ft rotary cutter.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Maybe she should fix it

[rd_macgregor]

Shaking sounds to me like something out of balance. Maybe a more careful look underneath to be sure both blades are intact with nothing hung up or wrapped on them.
A more drastic investigation might be to raise the unit (and block it with jack stands or something equivalent), disconnect the drive shaft at the tractor, then hand-rotate the blades and try to discern the source of the noise (banging, grinding, scraping, howling, squealing or whatever it is).

BOB

[Ford850]

The first thing to check is the blades. They should be loose enough to each swing full circle freely. If one gets hung up on it's bolt it will shake the whole tractor.

[jayste]

Shaking sounds to me like something out of balance. Maybe a more careful look underneath to be sure both blades are intact with nothing hung up or wrapped on them.
A more drastic investigation might be to raise the unit (and block it with jack stands or something equivalent), disconnect the drive shaft at the tractor, then hand-rotate the blades and try to discern the source of the noise (banging, grinding, scraping, howling, squealing or whatever it is).

BOB

+1 on what Bob said. Check to see if both blades are in their "cutting position". By that I mean fully extended. Sometimes when I get into some serious sapplings one will knock one of the blades off balance but continual running and centrifical force will bring in back out right before you decide to look and see whats up. If not that follow Bob's instructions. Let us know how it goes. By all means do this before you say anything to your Pard!

[sweettractors]

I also go with what Bob said. When you rotate the stumpjumper, watch to see if the output shaft could be bent. Ken Sweet

[CharlieS]

Look for long grass, baleing twine, wire etc wrapped around the blade pivot bolt. If knives dont pivot freely, even in a normal cutting position can cause an out of balance vibration. Its also possible that if a large obstruction has been trapped between blade and stump jumper plate, the plate's been bent enough to cause shake, or vibration.