New to the G1800

[roofgoat]

Good afternoon. Just picked up an older G1800 4ws with 1,200hrs for my dad.

Tested it out on the owner's yard and it seemed fine. At Dad's, I tried it out again. Now I've never run one of these so I'm not familiar with its operation.

I would lower the deck, engage the PTO and go. Sometimes the mower would be quiet, and then all of a sudden it acted like it was "waking up" and getting down to business. The cut appeared to be the same, but it would go between average sound cutting to a more aggresive sound (not broken) sound).

Does any of this make sense? Am I doing anything wrong? With my Simplicity, once I get the idle speed rpms up, I just engage the PTO, go fast or slow, and the mower makes the same noise regardless.

 

[jinman]

You need to get the deck off that mower and check the belt and pulleys/feedthrus to the blades. Everything from the u-joints on the shaft, the gearbox lubrication, and the belts/pulleys could be loose or getting ready to fail. Your PTO idler pulley also needs to be checked closely for a loose or failing bearing. If you don't know how to do these things, take it to a dealer for service. My mower sounds the same each time I run the mower.

Is the engine bogging down? There is also a common problem with these mowers that the engine will stumble and bog down when there are clogged fuel filters or the fuel pump fails.

Just buying a 1200 hour mower and putting it to work without doing a full service is a huge risk. If something fails, it could be very costly. Pay for the service and make sure your dad gets a great machine with no problems.

 

[roofgoat]

Thanks Jinman for the advice.

Here is another question for anyone. I have a local lawn mower repair guy who has a good reputation working with Deere, Simplicity etc. He has worked on some Kubotas.

There is a Kubota dealer 45 minutes away. Should I go to the Kubota guy or should any experienced mower repair shop be able to know this particular garden tractor and understand backwards and forwards what needs to be done.

 

[jinman]

Roofgoat, the reason I suggested you take your tractor in to be serviced is that you seemed to not be comfortable with troubleshooting and fixing the variance in sound of your cutting deck. Something in the way you phrased your question made me believe you needed more expert help.

If you think you would like to use the local guy, then I would go to him and describe the problem and see if he is interested in looking at the mower. He won't be able to offer you the parts support of an authorized Kubota dealer, but if he can identify needed parts, you can get them from the Kubota dealership or through somebody like messicks.com who also have Operator's Manuals and Service Manuals for sale at reasonable prices online. They also have a very nice feature where you can download sections of the parts manual and they show the parts and their stocking level. So, if your local guy finds you need something more than lubrication, he can get those parts easily through an online source or from the more distant Kubota dealer. I would try the local guy for this initial check of the G1800 and use this to see if you are pleased with his service. If good, you've found a local mechanic. If bad, you know you'll have to haul it to the Kubota dealer.