Rotary cutter wheel

[budlite]

The rear wheel on my MX-7 cutter does not readily swivel when turning. I have looked and the wheel bar does not appear bent comparing it to a picture in the manual and it rotates easily enough when off the ground. Any ideas what the problem could be?

[mlauk]

Does it have a lot of play in it? It might be binding once the load of the cutter is placed on the wheel.

[3RRL]

Couple of things.
Does it have a grease fitting and is it greased?
How about the way you have it set on the tractor. Is is fully engaging the ground or just skidding along? Sometimes when it's not completely down it does that. The only other thing I can think of is when the cutter's weight is sitting on it, there maybe some interference with the wheel shaft and the bearing or pivot tube. When you have it off the ground, try pushing up on the wheel like when the cutter's weight is pushing it up, then rotate. See if there's something goofy like a burr or something.

[Z-Michigan]

No idea if this is related or not, but I have had that problem with my LX-6 cutter since it was new. I never resolved it, and recently the wheel failed - see my thread in the attachments forum.

[RickB]

If the wheel yoke shaft is not vertical when the wheel is on the ground, or very near it, the wheel won't caster worth a hoot. I modified a customer's Woods tailwheel A-frame to get the wheel yoke properly situated. Problem solved.

[3RRL]

Originally Posted by RickB

If the wheel yoke shaft is not vertical when the wheel is on the ground, or very near it, the wheel won't caster worth a hoot. I modified a customer's Woods tailwheel A-frame to get the wheel yoke properly situated. Problem solved.

Yeah, I worried about that too when I modified mine.
I made it so the yoke shaft is always vertical using parallel linkage, regardless what height I set it at. Although mine worked before, it responds a lot better now.

[budlite]

Rick B - I bet that's it. Thanks everyone for your input.