What have you done to your Branson today?

[LouNY]

It's most likely the lower seal is going bad.
There can be a couple causes for that.
One, and the cheapest one is that some grass and weeds got in above the stump jumper and wrapped around the shaft.
Two and the harder one is the lower gearbox bearing is getting loose.
If you get under the deck and can rock the cutter hear and hear a clunk and moves back and forth or up and down,
the bearing is getting bad.
One band aid fix that can get you several hours is to mix in half a tube or so of good grease in the gearbox the next time it is low,
then run it to blend the gear lube and grease.
It won't fix it forever but if the gear box level is monitored and refilled as necesary it can get through for a while till you tackle pulling the cutter head off and the gearbox off to replace the bearing and seal.

 

[kantuckid]

My bush hog gets used about 6-8 hours annually since bought in 2006. That's less use than many use for one year? I have not looked under it this year though but will do so. Right now it does run very smoothly, no vibration as would suggest a rotary vibration at all.

 

[Branson Bob]

I used the FEL bucket as a work platform for pressure washing. I probably could have worn fall protection.

 

[Cougsfan]

You'd probably have to use a safety harness attached to a sky hook. (Been looking for sky hooks on both Amazon and E-bay, they don't seem to have any)

 

[Branson Bob]

You'd probably have to use a safety harness attached to a sky hook. (Been looking for sky hooks on both Amazon and E-bay, they don't seem to have any)

Yes, I've never found a sky hook worth a damn. They would have come in really handy during my 10 year career as an arborist but they seem to be very scarce... almost mythical.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Used mine today for the first time in a month to move a couple totes of firewood. I may have to put a battery tender on it at this rate, it cranked over pretty slow, but it did start. Left it running for about an hour while moving stuff around.

Took the forks off and put the bucket and Edge Tamers back on. We got a little snow yesterday and today, but nothing serious, just a couple inches total. But maybe this year we'll actually get decent snowfall. We sure need it. Last year was too dry. Dug out the outlet timer and plugged that in. Supposed to be -2F for a low tonight. Time to start leaving the tractor plugged into the timer for the winter.

 

[ptsg]

I weighed my tractor using an homemade scale made out of a simple hydraulic cylinder and a good pressure gauge with 2 bar increments between lines. Lifted each axle with the hydraulic jack and just put the scale under it and read the gauge.

Turns out it weights somewhere close to 4520 lbs, this is includes:

• Tractor - 3196 lbs including front weights
• Loader, loader mounts - Need to weight this once I take off the tractor
• Bucket - ~286 lbs
• Front weights - 6 x 37 lbs = 224 lbs
• Rear tires filled with water - Using the chart from Messicks, water adds 250 lbs on each 12.4-24 R1 tire
• Fire extinguisher - 28 lbs
• Hydraulic Top link - ?
• Front winch - ~154 lbs
• Toolbox full of the tools that came with the tractor plus some of mine

This all started the one time earlier this year, when I was towing the tractor to the remote propriety with the brush mower and the GNR (our version of DOT) pulled me over. They get out of their car, nice cops but still just a little bit arrogant to show some respect I guess, they asked for all the paper work from the truck, trailer and tractor.

I could see right away they were not experienced at all on this world of hauling equipment, trailers and etc. Anyway, about half an hour later, they came back too me, saying I was legal by 90 lbs. Lol

I knew that was waaaay off, because they used the weight of the tractor that is listed on the title (3196 lbs), winch doesn't include loader, winch, filled tires and some other stuff. And they added the weight of the brush mower (440 lbs). Doing the math this way, puts the tractor and mower at 3636 lbs, which would still give me about 1200 lbs of payload left on the trailer out of 4850 lbs total, nowhere close to the 90 lbs they said.

Well, even without weighting the tractor, I know that I'm actually overweight by about 200 lbs or so if I also carry the loader on the tractor plus an implement. Good thing they didn't make me drive to the scales that day.

 

[Branson Bob]

I finally installed the Bxpanded Piranha Tooth Bar to prepare for brush clearing.

 

[Branson Bob]

And used the forks to move some brush piles for a masticator.

 

[Branson Bob]

Here's the masticator. I bartered wiring my buddies house with a couple of days of mulching all the dead trees in our drought-battered wood lot.