Massey Ferguson 135 finish mower options?

[sch2046]

Hello,
I appologize if these questions are dumb as I just purchased some land and an older Massey Ferguson. I wanted to see what options I had on a finish mower, 16 acres to cut. Width and make and price. I am new to all of this so I may seem ignorant, that is because I am...... Thanks in advance for any help you may give.
Sean

 

[aczlan]

How rough is this area? Is it mostly open?

If I had to finish mow 16 acres I could look for a "Turf Batwing" like this one: Woods Equipment Company - Turf Batwing - Residential
If it is rough terrain, I would look for an older multi spindle rough cut mower (like: Brush Hog)


Aaron Z

 

[leonz]

:thumbsup:

Hello,
I appologize if these questions are dumb as I just purchased some land and an older Massey Ferguson. I wanted to see what options I had on a finish mower, 16 acres to cut. Width and make and price. I am new to all of this so I may seem ignorant, that is because I am...... Thanks in advance for any help you may give.
Sean

_________________________________________________________________

First your questions are not dumb, second the
Massey 135 is great tractor whether it is a
gas or diesel.

You have not mentioned whether it is four wheel drive
and whether it is automatic or a manual transmission.


Just because your new to all this is reason enough
to ask questions of us on the forum.

You have stated the acreage is 16 acres in total
and there are many issues time available being
the primary concern if becoming a gentleman
farmer is your goal.


1. The time you have to mow, or the time you
think you have to mow.
a. the actual time you will have to mow.
b. how nasty your 16 acres gets or has gotten.
c. your allergy level in relation to the acreage and weeds
d. what kind of turf if any being old pasture/hay ground
overgrown pasture.
e. what is your budget or percieved budget/allowable expense?
f. what is your mechanical ability/experience and or your limitations and tools?

2. whether the 135 is gas or diesel powered.
wherein the diesel has more usable available power/torque.
what type of tires does it have row crop or turf or R1 or R4?
Are the rear tires loaded with liquid ballast?, if not you should plan on having them
loaded with calcium chloride, winshield washer fluid or Rim Guard or add wheel weights.

If you do not have a front end loader on the 135 you should plan on
adding a set of suitcase weights no matter the mower type or width.



Now to the mowing part


There are many issues in deciding what type of mower to buy.


Number one is whether you have walked the ground to see whats
there as many hidden objects will suddenly appear and be impacted and
thrown by a rotary mower for many hundreds of feetand there are many
examples of this in the forum archives here and the news media with regard
to injuries and deaths related to bush hogs and rotary mowers.


First the rear P.T.O. is rated for 540 R.P.M. at the rated engine
speed for the rear mounted implement.

The rear rotary finish mower or single spindle bush hog or flailmower will be
powered by the PTO shaft attached to the tractor and then to the implements
right angle gearbox.

A rear trailing or integral three point hitch rotary finish mower will have a gearbox and V belt drive
for the external spindles. The mower will have either a left right or rear discharge for the mowed
grass or brush. these types of mowers may have wind deflectors surrounding each spindle and blade
to aid in the cutting of the material encountered.

The Massey Ferguson 135 has a capacity of 2,850 pounds of lift for the three point hitch
and can handle a five foot bush hog six or seven foot flail mower.


3. As the 135 has 45 gross horsepower you can easily handle a five foot bush hog or a 7 foot flailmower
with a finish knive flail mower rotor with power to spare.

The rule of 5 horsepower per foot is one that is hot debated around here by many of the members.




Lastly I always suggest that you contact Ken Sweet here on the forum as he
is a forum sponsor in good standing and ask him about his lines rotary mowers
and flailmowers and doing business with him helps promote the forum to every
one.

Ken also ships farm equipment nationwide from his warehouse in Kentucky as well.

I want you to succeed and not to fail.

If you overbuy in width for either a rotary or flailmower you can very easily mow in several passes with half cuts if needed if the material is very tall.


About mowing in general:

If you mow to fast you will leave rooster tails of brush to be mowed again with finish rotary mower or bush hog. The same is true of flailmowers as you will burn up a set of V belts as the mowr will simply continue to work until the material wraps around the flail mower rotor and the Power Take off will continue to rotate and the drive and driven pulley under the guard will continue to rotate until the V belt is torn in half by the drive pulley.



If you start in the center of an area that you wish to mow and mow in a spiral pattern you will save time and fuel and brakes as you will not need to stop at any time while mowing and you can overlap to catch any grass or brush that was missed.



If you would like to learn more about flailmowers the attachment forum has several hundred pages regarding them and you are welcome to PM me or many of the other members here and ask questions about them specifically and other mowers.


Welcome to the forum

_________________________________________________________________
Once you go flail you never go back:thumbsup::licking::drool:

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Hello,
I appologize if these questions are dumb as I just purchased some land and an older Massey Ferguson. I wanted to see what options I had on a finish mower, 16 acres to cut. Width and make and price. I am new to all of this so I may seem ignorant, that is because I am...... Thanks in advance for any help you may give.
Sean

No such thing as a dumb question in my book....The only way a question could be "dumb" is if it goes un-asked.

A 135 has the same exact engine/drive train as my MF150 (in avatar photo) Plus, I've also owned a few 135's over the years. I'm in the business of commercial mowing, and have a fair amount of background with rotary mowers AND flail mowers.

MF 135's are 38hp on the pto.....Engine hp is essentially irrelevant since you don't hook a mower directly to the engine...

If you're going to be cutting a well manicured "lawn", you MAY be able to handle more than 6', but if there's any heavy grass/weeds/brush mowing in the big picture, stay with 6' as a maximum. Typically, mowers go up in weight as they go up in width. 135's will handle a typical 6' rotary mower with relative ease. Same applies with a flail mower...6' in heavy grass is ALL you'd want on a 135, and even at that, a 6' flail will require a slower ground speed than a 6' rotary cutter.

16 acres with a 6' rotary mower equates to roughly 6 to 7 hours on clear, reasonably level ground, more with trees/ditches/ect to contend with. Figure 20% to 25% SLOWER with a flail mower due to lower ground speeds required.

If your ground is free of heavy brush, but with thick, heavy grass and weeds, a light duty rotary cutter will be more than adequate. If you're dealing with that well manicured "lawn", a finish mower is in order. Brush, weeds, and some smaller saplings to be mowed, you MIGHT want a medium duty cutter. But....With a medium duty 6' cutter, you may need weights on the front of the tractor.

 

[sch2046]

WOw. Thank you guys for the information! Here is some more info on the tractor, it is the gas, 2wd version (not sure of year), it comes with a woods rm 66 or 660 finish mower, and a howse agmo ( appears to be an older pull behind brush type of mower, a rear blade for snow and gravel grading and a FLB 1400 tiller. the price is $5500. This seems to be a good deal, with my limited knowledge. 10 of the 16 acres are pretty clear, no ditches, some heavy weeds that have been neglected. The other 6 are very overgrown with small saplings and very heavy weeds. I believe the Woods RM 66 is at least 5 or 6 feet wide. Should I purchase a brush hog? Or will I be able to make due with the Woods?

I never thought about the cutting pattern, great info! Time will not be on my side as I travel a lot. I picked up a John Deere 650 with a 72 inch belly mower at an auction, for the land around the house. I have a new found love of tractors now and I am addicted to them all.

I am very mechanical, I fix my own bikes and cars (when not electrical), so I dont mind digging into a vehicle. I just am unsure of what I am doing running this farm, even though it is small. The mistakes looming around the corner for me are what I am concerned about. You guys have given me a lot of info to think about and I greatly appreciate it.

I may be leaning on you guys again, soon.
Again, thank you very much for the info.
Sean

 

[leonz]

WOw. Thank you guys for the information! Here is some more info on the tractor, it is the gas, 2wd version (not sure of year), it comes with a woods rm 66 or 660 finish mower, and a howse agmo ( appears to be an older pull behind brush type of mower, a rear blade for snow and gravel grading and a FLB 1400 tiller. the price is $5500. This seems to be a good deal, with my limited knowledge. 10 of the 16 acres are pretty clear, no ditches, some heavy weeds that have been neglected. The other 6 are very overgrown with small saplings and very heavy weeds. I believe the Woods RM 66 is at least 5 or 6 feet wide. Should I purchase a brush hog? Or will I be able to make due with the Woods?

I never thought about the cutting pattern, great info! Time will not be on my side as I travel a lot. I picked up a John Deere 650 with a 72 inch belly mower at an auction, for the land around the house. I have a new found love of tractors now and I am addicted to them all.

I am very mechanical, I fix my own bikes and cars (when not electrical), so I dont mind digging into a vehicle. I just am unsure of what I am doing running this farm, even though it is small. The mistakes looming around the corner for me are what I am concerned about. You guys have given me a lot of info to think about and I greatly appreciate it.

I may be leaning on you guys again, soon.
Again, thank you very much for the info.
Sean

If you have not spent the money already:

Your stating that you travel a lot is the "solution"
to this algebra problem.

For $5,500 you can hire it done for several years to
obtain a good finish with zero issues with owning
equipment.

If you hire a logger with a forestry mower you should
be done in day or so for the acreage and it will be
knocked down to the sod the first time.

This way you can save for new tractor or a smaller
sub compact tractor with an all weather cab and a
front end loader and a rear mounted snow blower.


The biggest scary thing about a used tractor-
even a utility tractor that looks like it has been
taken care of is the transmission and pump as the
tractor has to be split to repair them and it will cost
more than the tractor cost to buy in this case.


Even a second hand Kubota BX2350 with the purchase of
a Caroni flail mower using a B rotor which has the shovel type
grass slicers would be less worry after you have the land gone
over with a forestry mower. A log skidder with forestry mower can
cover a great deal of territory quickly as it has a lot of useable power.

The forestry mowers mounted on log skidders are typically 7-8 feet wide
and make quick work of land like yours and if they hit anything "its not yours to break and fix".

 

[Farmwithjunk]

WOw. Thank you guys for the information! Here is some more info on the tractor, it is the gas, 2wd version (not sure of year), it comes with a woods rm 66 or 660 finish mower, and a howse agmo ( appears to be an older pull behind brush type of mower, a rear blade for snow and gravel grading and a FLB 1400 tiller. the price is $5500. This seems to be a good deal, with my limited knowledge. 10 of the 16 acres are pretty clear, no ditches, some heavy weeds that have been neglected. The other 6 are very overgrown with small saplings and very heavy weeds. I believe the Woods RM 66 is at least 5 or 6 feet wide. Should I purchase a brush hog? Or will I be able to make due with the Woods?

I never thought about the cutting pattern, great info! Time will not be on my side as I travel a lot. I picked up a John Deere 650 with a 72 inch belly mower at an auction, for the land around the house. I have a new found love of tractors now and I am addicted to them all.

I am very mechanical, I fix my own bikes and cars (when not electrical), so I dont mind digging into a vehicle. I just am unsure of what I am doing running this farm, even though it is small. The mistakes looming around the corner for me are what I am concerned about. You guys have given me a lot of info to think about and I greatly appreciate it.

I may be leaning on you guys again, soon.
Again, thank you very much for the info.
Sean

If you can find out the serial number on the 135, I'll track down the year model....135's are probably the "simplest" tractor to work on I've ever been around. There were 2 different gas versions. Very early and very late production versions had a Continental 4-cylinder. Mid production used a Perkins 3-cylinder based on the Perkins 3-cyl diesel. EITHER are excellent engines and not at all hard on fuel as some gassers can be. Either have fabulous parts support. Both are VERY reliable engines. Some of the earliest 135 had EITHER Z134 OR Z145 Continentals....The ones with the Z134's did NOT have live power (2-stage clutch). Personally, I'd avoid that....These "135 Customs" were economy versions, and fortunately, somewhat rare. No matter what combination of engine/transmission that 135 has, you'll have PLENTY of experienced advice here on the subject matter. $5500 for a 135 and listed implements could be a good buy if everything is in decent shape.

I have an aversion to spending money with nothing to show for it later....For that reason, I dislike the idea of hiring out any part of the process, especially so if I'm going to own the correct equipment to do the job myself at some point. If you have a "lawn mower" to do the finish grass around the house, I'd buy a 6' bush hog (rotary cutter) to maintain the rest of the property. Go easy on the first cutting and even most "light duty" cutters will have no trouble. Then it's just a matter of maintaining from there forward. The Woods RM mower will NOT like you if you start mowing saplings and heavy weeds.... It's a finish mower...If it were me, I'd look at the possibility of selling it or trading towards a bush hog (since you already have a finish mower for lawn duties)

 

[aczlan]

WOw. Thank you guys for the information! Here is some more info on the tractor, it is the gas, 2wd version (not sure of year), it comes with a woods rm 66 or 660 finish mower, and a howse agmo ( appears to be an older pull behind brush type of mower, a rear blade for snow and gravel grading and a FLB 1400 tiller. the price is $5500

How wide is this Howse Agmo? If it is heavy like you say, it should be able to do your cutting, but it just won't be quite as convenient as a 3 point mount ine if you have to backup.

Aaron Z