How many leaves can a Zero turn chew up

[fuseboxer]

I just came in the house my brand new V- belt on my wife's 60" Cub Cadet Zero turn is all chewed up. Now that the leaves are coming down good and heavy I have always helped my wife's mower out by giving it a good run through the heavy leaves. I have been very successful with this for years. I could smell something getting hot, I thought it was the leaves. Why this year and with a new belt? She only helped cut grass about 2-hrs once this year with her contraption.

I greased the spindles and will put on the old spare belt on that comes off easy when I go back out. It has not been very long with out spindle grease but I never know unless it squirts out to the side that much is going in.

Perhaps I am getting more cocky grinding up the leaves, blowing the exhaust in the run pile and then keep chewing it up smaller and smaller. Shure make it alot easier to suck up with a blower/sucker.

Maybe when the cutting deck disappears under the cut leaf pile one should stop. How much luck have you had? Shure beats raking and does a good job. The engine 23HP Kow never missed a beat. I got rid of my billygoat leaf chewer years ago, the zero turns are much, much better.

 

[Bird]

Leaves in the Fall and scalping the lawn first thing in the Spring is why I bought the bagger for my Toro ZTR. And it chops everything much finer than the walk behind Toro with a bagger that I had before. The walk behind would blow them into the bag, but without chopping them up much, so they filled the bag too quickly. This ZTR does a much better job.

 

[J_J]

I used to do lawn care and landscaping for about 20 years.

I can tell you quite a lot about leaves, as I had several customers with a very wooded lot, and of course leaves. I didn't especially like sucking up leaves for this reason. I was using a 60 in Dixie Chopper with a 55 gal container and a 5 HP engine vacuum. I could fill that container every 5 to 8 min, with dirt blowing everywhere. It made for a dirty job that old Mike on Dirty Jobs would have loved. Then you had to carry then about 200 yds and dump. It was too heavy to lift, and was hinged at the bottom so I just tilted the container over, and dumped. There is a filter for the leaves, but you will still eat plenty of dirt.

The vacuums are made by Trac-Vac, and I still have two of them, One mounts on the back with no wheels, and the other one has wheels and follows the Chopper around.

 

[fuseboxer]

You both have good machines to buy but I would have to sell something. I will try to get by with the few machines I have but the temptation is there. The Zero machine had its tension spring break and that caused the belt to burn up.

I do not like the dust and debree in the air that a zero turn provides but it sure helps when trying to get rid of the leaves. The heavy leaf load is on the South side of the house with 3acres of woods for me to blow the leaves into. The other trees the leaves blow away with the first strong wind. Some end up in the ditch but most just keep blowing into fields.

I do not like the rough ride on farm ground nor the noise of a zero turn but with the high speed blades it mulches and cuts clean. My JD garden tractors can not come close to mulching up grass or leaves.

 

[LBrown59]

I don't fool with them .
I just leaf them alone.

 

[Arky217]

I have many large oak trees on 2 acres.
Don't have a zero turn, just a typical Murray riding mower.
Here's how I deal with it:

After the first good layer of leaves have fallen, I install a cover made to replace the discharge chute over the discharge opening.
This causes the leaves to stay under the deck and be chopped up instead of flying out the discharge.

When possible, (sometimes you can't wait for it) I like to wait until after a rain. Not when the leaves are sopping wet, but before they dry out. This allows them to be chopped up without stirring up any dust.

When you just can't wait for that rain, I wear a rubber seal respirator, ear plugs, and goggles that seal tightly around the eyes.

However, I MUCH prefer to wait for a rain!

Then, I usually (but not as much as I should) go over the yard with
a sweeper and dump the chopped up residue in a compost pile.

 

[5030]

I have a CC 60" Tank Zero Turn with a 23 Kawasaki as well. I run Gator Mulcher Blades and eat leaves all the time. No belt problems at all but then, the spring on the idler tension lever is still tight. great mower.