brush hog wheel not working right

[jasonwolfington]

When I use my brush hog and make a turn, the rear wheel digs and slides on the ground instead of steering itself in the direction of the swinging shredder. The wheel doesn't have bearings in the pivot, but easily moves by hand and I don't know what I am doing wrong. The wheel works fine when I am mowing straight, but when I turn I have to raise the mower to turn.

Thanks for advice...I am a little new to tractors.

Jason

 

[Robert_in_NY]

What brand of Brush hog do you have? My King Kutter does the same thing. The problem is the angle of the wheel support coupled with the poor fit of the shaft causes it to bind in there when you turn. It is just a poor design on my cutter. The Woods tail wheel sits more upright and works great.

 

[jbrumberg]

jasonwolfington:

Welcome to TBN ! All rotary cutters are a little bit different. Try shortening your top link slightly and try to get the rear wheel pivot shaft as verticle as possible. Grease the *&% out of it!. Keep the posts coming . Just my $0.02- Jay

 

[shvl73]

Grease the *&% out of it!.

Jay's advice is exactly what I had done to my Woods cutter. Worked wonders. I suspect a bit of rust from sitting on the dealers lot was causing the binding. I had it pivoting well in no time.

 

[RoyJackson]

Also agree with Jay's comments about greasing the tail wheel. You may even want to lift it off the ground (use blocks under the cutter sides), grease it and manually work it around some.
I had the same problem with a finishing mower spindle...turned out to be a bad zerk, BTW.

 

[EddieWalker]

Same problem here with my land pride. I wasn't getting enough grease into it. After awhile, it totally stoped working. I took it apart are found out that the grease was just going in the zirk fitting and right out the top of the shaft. The rest was dry.

Now I grease the heck out of it and even stop to grease it while mowing if I'm out for awhile. No more problems.

Eddie

 

[Soundguy]

My KK fits a little loose.. but a super grease dose helped it .. I also adjusted the small frame back there to help the tube stay more inline with the axle, based on the cut height and toplink setting I like to use.

Mine's the old 'red' style of cutter.

soundguy

 

[john_bud]

Agree on grease, but also wanted to mention that proper set-up of the deck helps with this. Lift the 3pt up so the wheel is well off the ground. The height of the rear of the deck is set by the rear wheel. Loosen the bolts and lower the rear wheel by a full 3 inches to 5 inches. (Not permanently!)

Lower the 3pt so the wheel is on the ground and the FRONT of the cutter blades are at the prefered height. 4-5" ? Now go and cut with it and make some turns and see if it works better. Measure the difference between the front and rear heights , measuring at the blade tips. You normally want it to be 1-2" higher in the back. For some odd reason, some designs are more sensitive to binding at certain angles. You may have to diddle with it to see if there is a sweet spot, or even a "sour spot" where it doesn't work!

Good luck!

jb