Grass Hopper Front Mount Mower - stability on hills

[4570Man]

One thing about you Orange guys - your are loyal. Wrong but loyal! A GH is much lower center of gravity than an F series and holds hills very well. The wide stance, weight balance, and low CG make it ideal for hillsides.

I would rather have a GH than the Kubota, but found a good deal on the Kubota. I use a 4WD B7100 on hills anyway.

 

[Birdhunter1]

I recently loaded the tires 3/4 full of water on my Grasshopper 723 with Chevron tires. Dang thing is like a mountain goat now.

 

[Creamer]

I went from turfs to chevrons on my Deines and it is a totally new machine. I bet with water those things are like having studs.

BTW - you must be down south because you didn't fill them with that sticky mess called beet juice that the northerners do.

 

[Birdhunter1]

I'm about 60 miles north of the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. We get sub freezing temps pretty often from November through March. I filled them with water to see if I liked it, by wintertime I'll use an antifreeze mix or sub zero windshield washer fluid because I do use my Grasshopper in the winter to push snow. If I didn't use the machine in the winter it wouldn't hurt to just use water and let it freeze in the tire, many people do that.

 

[tractorworks]

"I recently loaded the tires 3/4 full of water on my Grasshopper 723 with Chevron tires. Dang thing is like a mountain goat now."

Thanks. I thought about this as I was mowing some slopes yesterday. I stopped halfway through and added the water, then finished. Amazing difference. Had thought about doing it many times but figured tires were too small to help. I have over 1100 hours on a Grasshopper 721 diesel with chevron tires and the change was night and day. Biggest change was sidehill, uphill tire not breaking loose. Going uphill improved a lot also. Thanks again.

 

[grobinson2]

We have both a Grasshopper 930D (61 inch Power deck) and a F3060 (60 inch deck) and while we use the hopper way more when it comes to our steep hills and around our bass ponds we use the F3060 every time.

Thanks,
Glenn

 

[DuckSlayer1017]

Guys, Any concern or opinion about excessive wear to the drive pumps with the added weight of loading the tires? The ztr's are just a different animal than the CUT's that we all load the tires on.

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

We have both a Grasshopper 930D (61 inch Power deck) and a F3060 (60 inch deck) and while we use the hopper way more when it comes to our steep hills and around our bass ponds we use the F3060 every time.

Thanks,
Glenn

Let's see. . . you have a L5740, a 930d with powerfold deck and an F3060.

I'm green with envy. That's a nice collection of equipment.

 

[Birdhunter1]

Will there be added wear? Very likely.
Any concern? The wear is nothing that I can't fix.

From what I have learned from guys who use their Grasshoppers to push snow all winter is that the weak link in the drive system is a fiberglass/plastic disc in the drive coupling mechanism that acts like a shear pin. It will break if the drive system is taxed too much. It is a cheap item that isn't hard to replace (so I'm told) until it's 25 degrees and blowing wind (also so I'm told).