No more wildflowers

[JimBinMI]

Wen,

I'm sorry for your luck, the least you could do is inform him of the capabilities of today's small diesel tractor. Haven't you read enough on this board so that you could inform him what these small diesels will do?

When you insult 18.5 hp, you insult all of those small Kubota, John Deere, and other owners out there too. Please try to retain some of what you read here so that you can be proud to inform your father and educate him next time too. He might actually be proud of you for helping him to understand things better!

A New Holland TC18 is rated for the following: 60" tiller, 54" box scraper, 60" front blade, 6 cu. ft. rear scoop, 48" front snow blower, 60" rear snowblower, backhoe, 72" landscape rake, 72" rear blade, 60" mid-mount finish mower, 60" flail mower, 48" rotary cutter, front loader, bale carrier, 48" rear finish mower although I use a 60" and it works great with no bogging ever! There, now Wen go forth to educate your father! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[W5FL]

JimBinMI

No insults intended. Just facts:

My dad own's only John Deere.

No snow in Texas to blow. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Will it run his 6 ft rotary mower?

Will it run his HD 72 in tiller?

Will it carry a round bale on the front and stack it on top of others in the barn?

Will it carry a round bale on the rear and if it did, how would you stack it on top of the other bales?

He carries one on the front and rear at the same time from the hay field 1/2 mile to the barn. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Will it pick up a pallet of feed (2000#) off the back of his pickup?

I told him how much your tractor weighed and he said that it was pretty light, but maybe if he could get it on the 3 point he might be able to use it for ballast. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

How much more can I teach him? Looks like he has all the right questions./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[JimBinMI]

Wen,

Glad that the New Holland TC18, which neither you nor he owns or will ever own, became such an important conversation with you and your dad.

Sorry to say, I NEVER talk about your "M" which I nor my father will probably ever own, with my dad!

If you need some more topics to discuss with you dad just let me know if I can be of help.

JimBinMI

We boys and our toys!

 

[Bird]

JimBinMI, remember that you live in hobby land; most of the real farmers around this area consider any tractor under 50hp to be a lawn and garden toy (so that includes most of us on this board, I guess). Of course if you're farming 500 to 1,500 acres, pulling 28' disk plows and seed drills and don't own anything smaller than 100hp, you tend to see things in a different light. One friend here pulls two drills at a time with a 150hp John Deere, but he has to put the duals on to do it. And then there are quite a few of the tracked John Deere, and especially the tracked Caterpillars that can really pull some big plows./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Those guys live in a different world from folks like us.

Bird

 

[Alan L.]

This is what really bothers me. I have run the cutter through some very thick, damp, and lush growth and it has never bogged down at all except when I bottom out on those large fire ant mounds. If it had done this when I first got the tractor I would just figure my tractor wasn't big enough for the 5' cutter in this kind of growth. But after having done it for about 90 hours of the 135 hours on the tractor, I know the tractor has an amazing amount of power for mowing. The other thing that told me it wasn't just the tractor that was working, but the cutter as well, was the noise coming from the cutter. Not anything unusual, just a lot louder than normal. Usually the transmission and engines sounds are about the same as the cutter, but yesterday the cutter "wow wow wow wow wow" noise drowned out everything. Note there is one "wow" for each revolution of the PTO, so about 540 of them a minute. The blades seem to turn freely as usual, and is nothing visually wrong with the cutter.

The other indication the tractor was really working hard was the fuel consumption. I can usually mow the whole 12-acre field on about 5 gallons of diesel. Yesterday I had to stop and go to town for fuel after about 6 or 7 acres.

I'm just disappointed here, as my 2710 has never grunted over anything before and its a little sobering to find out it has limitations.

 

[TomG]

Yep, we go through the same thing. This time of year I mow because the flowers that are here are low. Mowing keeps the bugs down as well. Later I space mowings between daisies, brown-eyed susans and paint-brush. I told my wife about this thread. She just smiled and said: 'This need to have lawn instead of flowers must be a guy thing.' I prefer less bugs myself, but that's just a part of self, wife, dog and tractor getting along. Works well enough, even if the dog does bark at the tractor.

 

[Bird]

Alan, you really make me curious about that cutter, and whether it was the stuff you were cutting or something different about the cutter. If it sounds different from in the past (when not cutting anything), then I'd definitely want to thoroughly inspect the cutter (which you've probably already done). I guess you did check the oil in the gearbox, tried turning the driveshaft by hand, greased the u-joints on the driveshaft, and made sure they turn freely in all directions, made sure all the bolts are still tight (like the ones holding the gearbox to the deck). You get used to a lot of noise around any tractor, but when a sound changes, that tends to worry me a bit until I find out why.

Bird

 

[Alan L.]

Yep, I've checked everything I don't see anything wrong. The gearbox is full, the drive shaft turns easily, the blades turn freely. I notice the increased noise mostly under heavy load. When it gets to stuff thats not so bad the noise decreases considerably.

I went back out to finish the job today. I think it went easier, even though it was a little muddy from the storms last night. The reason is probably the fact that the sun was out and the grass was dryer.

I'm beginning to think that this was just unusually thick plant material. I got off the tractor and you literally cannot walk through the stuff it is so thick, and about 18" to 4' tall. I have never seen so much cut material still laying after it is cut.

I think maybe I will try to get my blades sharpened a little before the next time.

By the way, TomG, this is basically a field I'm talking about. Its pretty rough looking. Maybe someday it will be a lawn but no time soon. Next spring I'm gonna have my brush hog out there at the first sign of growth. The wildflowers will have to grow in the next field over.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Alan,one other thing you might check is the air-cleaner,a dirty filter will make an engine work a lot harder and burn a lot more fuel.Also,have you changed brands of fuel? sometimes this makes a difference also.

 

[Thomas]

Mike, your right about the fuel for the grade does make a differents.

My second fill up I believe had water or the grade was cheap.
I buy my fuel only where the City of Lebanon purchase there fuel,also the other heavy equipment owners do them same.

Idleing at low rpm's for a long time will will also cause it to smoke,so maybe half throttle and a trip around the block might help?




Thomas..NH