home built ditch mower??

[countrybumpkin]

Looking at building something for mowing ditch banks and such, was thinking of finding a small lite weight bush hog and making a side mount style maybe. Was wondering what you guys have built or come up with for doing this type of work. Will be used on a 34 hp L series kubota.

 

[Don87]

I saw a you tube video of someone attaching a pushmower to their FEL for that purpose.

 

[countrybumpkin]

Well now that does give me some ideas, I was thinking of running it off the tractor , but having it's own motor would work fine for what I was needing too. Anyone else have more ideas??

 

[jenkinsph]

The nice thing about using a small mower is you can reach farther without so much of an weight imbalance. Should be simple to rig up compared to buying gearboxes and associated linkages. I would like to have one that will reach both sides of the ditch from the street. An important consideration is oil for the engine, need to keep the angle of the deck within limits of the engine design criteria.

 

[Fixemall]

Old guy up the street brought me two sets of handles to weld together for his little push mower, he can now do both sides of the ditch from the house side, I thought about fabbing up a rig for the loader but then I just decided to spray the ditch instead.

 

[countrybumpkin]

Yeah I don't need a large mower, or one for real extreme angles, definitely lighter the better. The oil issue has been on my mind, a buddy of mine has a real nice older john Deere rider that he got to turn into a small spray tractor, and is going to remove the deck I think it was a 36" if I could rig up a motor to run it may work nice. I remember seeing some mowers on the net that were built using what appeared to be a mower deck and were belt driven, but have been unable to locate them anymore, anyone seen these before or have a link to them ?

 

[Don87]

The nice thing about using a small mower is you can reach farther without so much of an weight imbalance. Should be simple to rig up compared to buying gearboxes and associated linkages. I would like to have one that will reach both sides of the ditch from the street. An important consideration is oil for the engine, need to keep the angle of the deck within limits of the engine design criteria.

You need a setup like a backhoe. Using the pushmower idea, you only need small square tubing to hold it, and very little counterweight(if any).

 

[Don87]

The nice thing about using a small mower is you can reach farther without so much of an weight imbalance. Should be simple to rig up compared to buying gearboxes and associated linkages. I would like to have one that will reach both sides of the ditch from the street. An important consideration is oil for the engine, need to keep the angle of the deck within limits of the engine design criteria.

This is a little bit of a concern, but in the days before weedeaters.............I remember tying ropes to the handles of pushmowers to lower them over the banks and pull them back up.

 

[MossRoad]

Someone in the Power Trac forum took an old Snapper riding mower deck and put a hydraulic motor on it to drive it. They are pretty tough little decks. Small, single blade, round deck.

 

[Fixemall]

Get an old push mower and rotate the motor 90 degrees on the deck, that will fix the oil issue as it won't load the head or bottom of the block and the cam activated oiler will still do it's job, even at a 45 degree angle.