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Yeah, I've always heard locust is good, too. My window sills were made of white oak, installed between 1734 and 1775. Most are still doing fine, after 300 years in constant weather and contact with damp stone and mud, so I guess it passes the rot resistance test. :ROFLMAO: No one ever...

Not really. The machine was 30 years old when I bought it, and sold in better condition than it was when I got it. I may have added a few scratches, but the rust and dents were all pre-installed, long before my time.

True. But to be honest, it's usually possible to find a spot on a leafblower that's good enough for it to run through the season, without constant fiddling. It's not like I'm blowing leaves in January. I find that with the OEM carb, once you find a happy medium, they can be pretty much left...

I learned this story probably 15 years ago, and knowing myself, I am almost sure I would've asked this question. Or more likely, "so who finished the roofing job?" Unfortunately, I don't remember the answer.

lol... I have the same issue with my Stihl BG56 blowers. The OEM carb's tend to fail by hydrolocking the machine with fuel, so I end up replacing them with aftermarket carb's when they innevitably fail. But the aftermarket ones never stay in tune quite as well, at least in some weather...

Okay, just ordered white oak to be sawn. Total cost is $450 for white oak in 6/4, versus $325 for red oak, so no real comparison when considering superior rot resistance of white. I'm also going to take the opportunity to relocate my two large batteries to the rear of the trailer for more...

A buddy's father passed while re-roofing their house. He was in his early 70's, and into fasting. Apparently putting a new roof on your house in summer heat, while fasting in your 70's, is a recipe for negative outcomes. Who knew? :rolleyes: I've never had the gall to ask him how they got...

Seems likely, but less excusable in these days of YouTube University. Learning to properly tune a carburetor years ago required getting someone to teach you, or finding a book that described it reasonably well enough to learn on your own. But these days, you have hundreds of excellent short...

Likely a notice was sent and missed during those brief weeks/months. We were stuck in a hospital 100+ miles from home, no easy access for keeping up with mail at that time. It's likely notices were sent in the window between him getting sick and passing, which spanned August thru October. I'm...

This was also 35 years ago, when laws may have been different, and we're relying on my memory as a teenager at the time. So I'm sure there was more to the story, but the result was as described, either way.

The days of a family agent weren't as rosey as some seem to think. Nostalgia has a way of painting over the rough spots. Just one of a million stories: My grandparents used the same insurance agent for decades, something like 40 years. They had their business, home, auto, and life insurance...

That is important. Closing or squinting one eye and making the right sequence of grunts seems to help in some cases, as well. That’s funny, I hate the pull-collar types! If I had huge hands, I’d probably prefer the pull collar, but I can never seem to keep the collar pulled and push the stub...

Very sorry to hear all of this. Hopefully being able to at least read his old posts brings you some closure or comfort.

I'd probably just buy a roll of adhesive-backed 1/16" x 2" polyethelene (i.e. Tupperware), and roll that onto the angle steel before laying down the new pressure treated. It wouldn't really protect the trailer sides where the wood contacts, but that probably gets rinsed clean by rain and snow...

I'm close to Heacock Lumber, who process a lot of oak, but they only sell it green and full rough dimensions. I'd have to dry and mill it, which I am set up to do, but it means postponing install until at least end of summer. If I'm going to do all that work, it'd have to be white oak, since...

I should probably wear a face shield. I've been hit in the face all around my safety glasses, a few that have hurt like the Dickens, but so far safety glasses alone have protected me from any serious damage. I did shatter the window on my back door once, though. I honestly don't know how it...

I know there have been several threads on trailer decking here, for various applications and trailer types, but here's one more: It's time to replace the decking on my log and tractor hauler, which is a Big Tex 70TV closed-side landscape trailer with 2x6 PT decking. The PT works well for...

Downed trees are second only maybe to waves at sea, in never looking as big on film as they are in person. Looks like a lot of wood, although not a whole lot of it is straight, so you have some work in splitting it and making it stack!

I guess I didn’t get any photos for the group to play along, but I pulled my log hauler trailer out today and made a 90 minute round-trip run down to mom’s today, looking like something out of Sanford and Son both ways. Mom’s retirement house, the one she bought when all of us kids flew the...

Yeah, UV embrittlement is definitely a problem with some plastics, especially thermoplastics. I expect the newer ones are better than the older stuff. My 855 hood was glass-reinforced plastic resin, essentially fiberglass. No issues with that one, despite the tractor spending half its life...

We ended up finding our own comp's, since the appraisers did such a bad job of it. In our case, both the appraiser and mortgage company liked our comp's better. We live in a small high-wealth neighborhood, where housing prices are 3x the surrounding area. Couple that with an unusual 300 year...

You can hardly help what some prior user did to an otherwise well-built rental trailer. U-Haul, at least in my limited experience, does buy/build reasonably good quality trailers.

I've always treated moving as the perfect time to find a new insurer. I'm usually about fed up with the existing one by then, always playing the game of raising rates each year with no claims, and then magically lowering them when I call threatening to move. :rolleyes: If your old agent is...

It's actually a good friend's, the place where I get most of my firewood. I think it's around 1970. I remember him saying the 4-cylinder gasser engine was actually Italian, guessing Fiat. Nice little workhorse, we rarely need to run it much above idle for the type of work we're doing with it...

I guess I could look, but I'd assume they must still rent a 7000# GTWR trailer for the majority of their customers? Most full-size SUV's and half-ton trucks are rated to tow at least 7000#, and most towed cars and CUT's owned by the "trailer-less" public are under the 5200# payload rating of...

We still skid most of our firewood with the gasoline variant of that same tractor:

I'm going to have to try this. I was going to say "turn off the tractor", as the PTO's on at least some of my tractors have been stiff when the tractor is running, but go into neutral once the tractor is shut off. Of course, turning the tractor off is probably never a bad idea when working...

1 hour ago, my back yard:

I wish I had an easy way to directly uplaod videos, as I have countless hilarious clips of our Boston terror. The best are the sneezing fits that start whenever she's trying to catch a thrown bone or Frisbee, and gets bopped in the nose. The other thing that cracks me up is their tendency to...

A lot of people were unhappy with the initial switch to plastic, but it's been proven over 40 years that it lasts longer, and takes regular weathering and wear much better than the metal parts. My 1986 Deere 855 had a plastic hood, but everything else on it was metal. When I sold the thing in...

Boston terror…

Suitcase weights still run $1 per pound? Heck, barbell plates might be another solution, with a convenient bolt hole in their middle. :D

Probably depends most on whether you're single or married. :ROFLMAO:

Probably less likely today, when most are running loaders that were specifically designed for their CUT, than in the old days of third-party hydraulic systems. Manufacturers obviously want to run the highest safe system pressure, to advertise maximum safe lift capacities without the cost of...

Her Majesty's First In Charge?

Brrr... no one should be posting photos like that, in June!

Actually happened with my loader control, once. Took a few minutes looking at all the linkage, wondering why the stick was all sloppy despite everything else being tight, until I caught the pivot point wobbling.

Although a small and unimportant part, the scene he was in was maybe the funniest single scene of the entire Ghostbusters franchise: "cuz one time I turned into a dog, and they helped me."

Early in my career as an R&D engineer, I had the luck to work alongside a very quiet older guy, who'd been doing my job for roughly 40 years. He made up for what he lacked in education, with experience and an uncanny knack for reasoning out the kinds of problems we faced everyday. When I'd be...

I remember 25 years ago, when I first started watching internet forums, I kept seeing "DAMHIKT". Took me weeks to figure out what that meant. :ROFLMAO:

Good point. I thought we decided the OEM batteries were cheaper in the long run, Arly?

Speaking of which, just finished drafting another data sheet, and now it's time to start working on the next quote. Worked until 3am last night, back up at 6am this morning... but I did take a break to mow the lawn ahead of the coming rain, and then hop in the pool for 30 minutes this...

Read the last few pages of this thread! It was mostly about those battery costs, and the cost of fuel they're offsetting. He just reported $225 / pair, a few posts back.

Boat trailers seem to be the most universally subject to breakdowns of all highway vehicles and trailers. Between the harsh environments to which they're subjected, and the fact that many are used only twice per year, it always seems like maybe more than 95% of them are of questionable...

It's easy to forget the vast volumes of crap made in the 1970's, simply because it's not around today. The old equipment you see today was the creme of the crop, while the majority has gone away due to bad design, bad function, cheap materials. As an old house and history nut, I hear the same...

My working life is a game of fits and starts, feast or famine. I got hit with a few big projects, that have had me basically chained from my desk from the time I roll out of bed each morning, until I fall back into it 7 days per week. So this project, along with the backhoe I had mentioned in...

Seeing as I haven't come across many non-profit mower manufacturers, I'd venture to say all mowers are built to soak up money. :p Manufacturing volume has an enormous effect on price. Some of my customers end up paying as much as 6x higher pricing than others, based soley on their requested...

Can’t do Beach Boys without Sloop John B.

One if the greatest composers of the 20th century, no matter how you measure success.

That seems to vary tractor to tractor, and maybe bucket to bucket. On my old tractor, curl could definitley lift loads that the lift function alone could not. But the bucket was lighter and had less depth. On my newer tractor, bucket curl stalls out even before the lift cylinders, although...

Just a means of holding the plow marker, as a visual on how far the hitch receiver projects, so I would stop backing it into things in close quarters. :ROFLMAO: On my old tractor, I rarely used the hitch receiver on the ballast box, so I'd remove it when not in use. That machine was fine...

I bought one of the standard (800#ish) ballast boxes from Deere, but instead of bolting the extension onto it to make it taller (1300#?), I welded my own suitcase weight carrier bars onto it. I also sunk 3" PVC tubes into it before filling it with concrete, so I have a handy place to carry...

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, I haven't seen that manual in awhile! I remember the thing that was so damn cool about the 064, back when I first bought it, is that this relatively large saw pulls 13,000 rpm. :D I was coming up from 9000 - 11,000 rpm Super EZ Auto's and 510EVL's, at...

Re: front axle. Lots of comments about stressing your front axle, but no advice to add 3-point ballast? Ballast on your 3-point hitch is the best way to reduce load on the front axle, when doing heavy loader work. And the farther aft that 3-point ballast hangs, the more it transfers weight...

They were great saws, probably one of the best Stihl ever made up to that time, but it's an antique. I haven't bothered to compare it horsepower per pound to anything made today, but I have to imagine your 500i surpases it in almost every way. xyz123 probably has the bore/stroke of all these...

Until someone from redwood country shows up, and starts laughing at all of us. That might not stay available for long, if it's in good shape. Seller sounds trustworthy? Some like to ask for a photo of piston with muffler removed, but that can be a lot to ask of a seller with a hot deal.

It's not! But the OP's question was about needing a longer bar on his 261, and he lives in the mid-Atlantic region, so we've already assumed he's buried to the dogs in hardwood. Agreed. That's why we keep smaller saws. :p

"Large" is a relative term. To me, that means anything over 40" diameter at breast height, and you're never tackling that with a 20" bar on any saw, or any bar mounted on an MS261. White oaks in particular, can grow very large here. The largest I brought home was over 6 feet in diameter at...

That's fine! We all do what works for us. I'm a big fan of old tractors and classic cars. I've owned several of each, and they're lots of fun to toy with and put to work, when you don't actually need to rely on them. I can't even imagine breaking the rear end or HST on my 3033r... but I...

useful when wood diameter is larger than bar length. Chain rounding the nose wants to constantly "lift" the tip of the bar, and leaning against those spikes is one means of keeping things moving in the desired direction, as well as reducing probability of kick-back if your plunge starts shallow...

Exactly what I'd run, as well. Anyone who thinks they should be run with bigger bars isn't cutting a lot of large-diameter oak. I'm presently running: 36cc = 12" (T435) 63cc = 19" (036 Pro / predecessor to MS362) 85cc = 28" (064 AV / predecessor to MS660)

I'll agree the column shifter isn't exactly the best solution, but it's nowhere near as bad as a rotary knob. Of the two, it's the lesser of two evils. In approximately 35 years of driving, I have NEVER shifted any other vehicle into park or the opposite direciton of travel while rolling, but...

I like the older stuff too, but not because it's better... because it's not! Let's not compare today's crappy cheap lawn tractors with yesterday's expensive garden tractors. Apples to oranges, not a fair comparison, especially when you look at the prices charged, scaling for inflation. Apples...

Their chain and bar prices are about 30% higher than elsewhere. Heck, you can pick up Stihl 33RS-72 chains on Amazon for $30, and no one ever claimed Amazon is the cheapest source for anything. No comment on the powerhead price, I haven't shopped new powerheads in years, but if their chain...

I only drive a 1/2 ton these days, but that stupid round shifter knob is the only thing I really dislike about my Ram pickup. It is one of the dumbest user-interface device decisions ever made by a car company, and I'm amazed they stuck by it as long as they did. Column shifters have been...

Speaking of Miatas:

You might do well to post the equivalent Gates number here, both for your own future memory, and the benefit of anyone else hunting that NLA part.

Yeah, yours is a lot better. The bar about which 5030 was writing, and to which I was responding, is these goofy things: I can only assume Martha Stewart was somehow involved. :p Two things: 1. Yes, it'll do fine. But like you said, a 20" bar buried beyond the nose on a modern...

I'm with you. Whenever selling used equipment, I figure on 50% of new. Even if new and clean, you're still expecting buyer to assume risk of a no-warranty transaction. $1000 for used vs. $1400 for new, I'd just buy new to avoid the hassle and have a warranty. And xyz123 makes a good point...

Good plan. And you can always run skip chain on longer bar and full comp on shorter bar. That's what I do with my 85cc saw, 28" with full comp and 36" with skip. I had a Super EZ Auto. Totally different animal than a modern MS-261. The EZ Auto's and their variants ran super-low RPM's and...

Very cool car! But you’re sort of stepping on my point, in bringing them up. :ROFLMAO:

The price might not be terrible for someone who needs the saw, but with your 500i already in the cupboard, there's much less justification for keeping an MS-66x. MS-661 = 7.2 hp / 16.5 lb 500i = 6.7 hp / 13.9 lb At less than 10% difference in horsepower, the MS-661 is too close to the 500i...

I should have posted my story in this thread, but here you go... a tale of my 54 year old Toro! Disclaimer: It may actually be a 1973 model, not 1971. I always have trouble remembering.

This is one big appeal of small Euro sports cars, especially when shopping classic cars. Similar thrills are achieved at lower speeds in tiny 200 hp British and German cars, versus big 500 hp American muscle cars. I had lots of fun in MG B's and Midgets, in high school. Mazda brought that...

It's worth noting that this should be done every few hundred hours, anyway. I don't remember the exact schedule off the top of my head, but I'd bet it's a 400 - 600 hour item, as I've done it at least twice on my 1200 hour machine. I'd guess three times, if you count the recent rebuild. The...

I've heard the same. My local saw shop says they do more repairs and rebuilds on mod'd saws than stock saws, due to either bad mod's or folks pushing them past their design points. These are guys who do nothing but repair saws all day long, it's a dedicated pro saw shop who sell Stihl...

Then why would it run "smooth as silk" at up to half throttle?

I deal with both almost every day, running a small manufacturing business from our rural residential / farm-zoned property. On the phone or web, Fed Ex is easier and more helpful, but employs drivers who are just absolutely terrible. I've dealt with probably 20+ different UPS drivers in my...

Yeah, you're just living in a whole different world, though. I never pull trailers over 7000 lb. I used to work part of every year in Germany and always had to hear those guys laugh at us Americans for buying high-horsepower vehicles, back when most of their Autobahn system was still totally...

I guess I'll never grow up. :p <-- horsepower junkie

Speaking of pull cords, your photo was a little small to see for sure, but were some of those 084's without compression relief valves?!? oof! My 036 has one, but that saw is small enough that I rarely even bother to use it. My 064 must have pretty high compression, or a comparatively...

I have to admit, I almost never pull that side off my saws. I remember having the recoiler off the 064 just once, to replace a broken pull cord, and have probably never popped that cover off the other two. I do blow thru it with compressed air, so hopefully not too terrible, but should I...

Zoom in on the 064! Yeah, the other two were almost brand-new in that photo, and I try to keep them relatively clean. But I've put a lot of miles on the 064, probably more than any other saw I've ever owned. No matter how the outside of the saw looks, I try to blow them out with compressed...

Seems it'd be a hell of a lot easier, cheaper, and more convenient to pick up an old Jeep and mount a snow plow to that, or even one fitted with one of the common Spicer PTO's, to drive a snowblower. One real common personal plow vehicle around here was the Jeep Comanche. I had more than one...

Good advice, esp. considering how much evidence we have of human nature being the opposite, folks getting "old and cranky".

Wow... amazingly clean saws, for that age! Mine is pretty well-maintained mechanically, but looks like it's been through a war. :ROFLMAO: Just hunting thru photos, I found this old pic of what I carry when going out cutting. The chains I use now are diffferent (two 10 footers with choker...

That's about an hour southeast of me. I'm up in central Mont.Co. There are a handful of members from the eastern Bucks area, who are probably within 20 minutes of that.

... and like shaving, it's only exciting the first few times. :D

lol... "the wood just fell in half when it seen the saw!" :ROFLMAO: I actually owned an 084 very briefly, before picking up the 064, and the thing was a beast. I'm pretty sure you could put that bar into concrete, and it would just keep churning away, nothing would stop it. But mine had...

That's a good way to train it, and something I'll have to remember to try. As to the relative's houses, my grandparents generation of my family owned most of the historic landmarks associated with the late 1776 into early 1777 part of the rev war, which was centered in east central Bucks...

I was going to say "check slave and master cylinders", but that comes from working on a lot more cars than tractors. :ROFLMAO: There's no view port in the bellhousing, where someone can see if the fork is actually moving the throwout bearing?

"I wish you folks would start considering what kind of world you're leaving behind for Keith and I." -- Willie Nelson, speaking of Keith Richards

Yep, I had an old Whites from the 1970's or 80's, now I have a more modern unit bought about 5-10 years ago. They're great when you know what you're looking for, but when just doing an indescriminate sweep to see what may be down there, this area is just constant hits on mostly trash metal...

I do, but after 300 years of constant inhabitation in which there was no trash service for probably the first 250+ years, it's basically impossible to use one around here! It beeps constantly, over almost every square foot of ground, given the amount of metallic trash that's been discarded and...

Commercial guys easily run 1000 - 2000 hours per year on a mower. But I don't see many of them running Kohlers, at least around here. :p

On the flip side, no one is building much out there. Low demand dictates the lack of supply.

I've actually been toying with the idea of buying another smaller saw, so I can stop using my top-handle job for every small task. Top handle saws are great for their intended purpose, but not exactly the safest tool in the shed for working on the ground, which is mostly what I'm doing with it...

lol... you don't know the Mennonites! They may be pious, but they've also never stepped over a nickel without picking it up. Frugal to a fault, there's no way there is anything of any value hiding under this house. :ROFLMAO: Locals joke that the "M" in Mennonite is for "Money".

Interesting. How many are putting enough hours onto an engine like this, that extended range oil is even warranted? No matter how good the oil, I'd think you're still going to want to change it yearly, just to remove corrosive combustion byproducts from the crank case.

It all depends on your patience. Some people even drive 4-cylinder pickup trucks, others are bolting roots blowers onto their v8's.

Good post, but just to clarify one point, all Stihl pro saws I've ever owned have adjustable oilers. I've heard that some of their cheaper homeowner and "farm and ranch" series saws lack adjusters oil their oilers, but I've never bought any of those.

Understanding to what you plan to mount this blower might help with the responses. I can't imagine you're mounting handlebars and lawnmower wheels on the thing to push it up and down the driveway. Even Jeeps and pickup trucks often have PTO-optioned transfer cases, if you plan to mount this...

No experience with modern Kohler, I've only ever owned their classic engines. But on any machine, I try to run the OEM filters and whatever oil meets the grade. I wouldn't go out of my way to buy Kohler brand oil. Your manual should specify both weight and grade, and you can be reasonably...

Basements add a lot of cost. They make sense in parts of the country where you need to dig down 60% - 80% of typical basement depth to get below the frost line anyway, might as well just go the additonal 20% - 40% of the way and have all that storage space. It also gives you a frost-free place...

Just for the record, I'd put a 16" bar on an MS-261. My stating that 18" would be ideal for the MS-362 was not meant to imply the same bar would be suitable for the much smaller MS-261, when cutting nose-buried in hardwoods. I was just giving a data point based on a saw I actually own, and...

Unless things are different in Fla, I'm guessing this must just be one rogue agent, or one insurer's policy? I've never come across this, in fact one of the two water heaters in my current home was 25 years old when I bought it, and insurance co. didn't even mention it. It will be 40 years old...

You're probably cutting a lot of hardwoods in KY. I run a 20" bar on my 63cc Stihl 036 PRO, predecessor to the modern MS-362, and it's honestly too much bar for the thing when running full comp full chisel chain. It's fine cutting smaller hardwoods, but as soon as you bury that 20" bar to the...

The intake manifolds are known to crack on those motors, causing a leak on only one side. I think it's a stretch, but since vacuum generally drops as RPM climbs, I guess that's always a remote possibility. I agree with your thinking that, at 1400 hours, there's only a limited amount of effort...

Is buyer really going to back out if you just call, "as is", and let them deal with the water heater themselves? Maybe my view is skewed by only ever buying and selling very old houses, my newest house ever was built 1877. But it's real common here for a seller to just say, "hey, it's an old...

You're calling exemption on a technicality? :p "No sir, it's not off-roading. It's farming!"

Agreed. This goes along with my dislike of cutting into a tree when any line on it has been pre-tensioned. It increases probability of barber chair, as mentioned several pages back.

Different scenarios, in my view. When just holding a tree to protect an obstacle, and using wedges and/or gravity to push it over, then yes... no-stretch line is best. But when pulling a tree up and over it's point of balance, the classic "reverse leaner", I can see where ning's stretchy-rope...

Winch line is generally Dyneema single braid, such as Samson's Amsteel Blue. It has even less stretch than steel, at the same fractional loading. It's amazing stuff, I have used literal miles of it on racing boats, but usually in a double-braid configuration for control lines (e.g. dyneema...

With the length of those rental car contracts we all blindly sign, I have to imagine there's a clause or two in there about "off-road use".

These engines have no trigger, just DC to a coil per cylinder, which is mounted to crank case adjacent to flywheel. Magnet on flywheel spinning next to coil, with direct connection from coil to spark plug. Typical magneto setup.

If your Kawi v-twin is like mine, they are somewhat sensitive to flywheel/coil gap, so obviously make sure that's right. You rmanual should have the number, and it's an exercise is moving the magnet under the coil and pushing it down onto a feeler gauge while you torque the mounting bolts...

Agreed... when it's sitting still in a parking lot. But I suspect you'll find that even a moderately bumpy stretch of road or single pothole can exert forces above 3g, maybe closer to 5g, on even the suspended (sprung) part of the vehicle. Now your point loads are 1800# to 3000# each, and up...

Not sure if it's been mentioned, I skipped some pages in the middle, but a common method for making this a more manageable "DIY" chore is to break up the painting (or re-painting) to a little each year. With our common old traditional 2-story center-hall colonials, this is most often done by...

I was wondering that, but it's more fun to imagine it's real. Stop ruining our fun. :p

Thinking more on it, I probably should've said "a wrench in one hand, and their .22 in the other." There's a lot to be said for kids that grew up hunting, when you drop them into the middle of a foreign jungle in southeast Asia, fighting enemy guerillas.

I've long argued that the American ingenuity that has taken us to victory in most wars comes from being a nation of farmers, hotrodders, and other similar wrench-turners. The French may have had a phenomenal army, the the British an overwhelming Navy, and no one is going to out-work the...

I'm beginning to think slang varies regionally, more than I had realized. I wasn't talking about mowers. :p

See my post weeks above. Assuming poly pipe, you don't need a wire, just fill the line of interest with a brine solution, and connect your sounding transmitter to any nearby metal fitting. Brine isn't exactly super-conductive (10 S/m versus copper's 58 MS/m), but a sufficiently strong...

Old snapper... 🤮 Especially if it's in its 80's! :ROFLMAO:

It's amazing how stupid some people really are, when you see stuff like this. Yeah, let's reduce the surface over which all that weight is exerted to just four small 3.5 inch squares, and then stand it up on top of some 18 or 20 gauge sheet metal... no problem! Even if just regular KD lumber...

Ning already got most of it, leaving room for inert ingredients required for pelletization, and possible surfactants, etc. Also, there's value in arranging the product for a consistent application rate, with most turf care programs and equipment already dialed in to a 200#/acre distribution...

Note wheel is plastic. It might be unusable after any lengthy exposure to any mixture containing acetone.

You need Nate Romanowski!

There are no threaded holes in the hub that you can attach a harmonic dampener puller to? Heating with torch and then quenching with penetrating oil (e.g. PB Blaster) almost always pops any spline shaft loose, but you can't do that with a plastic wheel surround on the hub. You can pick up a...

Nutsedge is pretty easily controlled with one of a half-dozen specialty products. They're all relatively expensive, by comparison to the usual 2-4D broadleaf control chemicals, but they're effective. The big name brands are Dismiss (pro) and Sedge Hammer (homeowner), but now you can buy...

Yep, that roughly agrees with my memory, lime is roughly 10% the cost of fertilizer. And quality seed is 5x the cost of fertilizer, at least for most of the better tall fescue blends with higher germination rates. So for the love of everything holy, get your pH and nutrients right, before...

That's smart. And it'll hurt less if they do, given where they'd probably stick that bat. :p

I've toggled back and forth between Allectus and Entourage, depending on which was available in the fertilizer blend I needed that year. Or during the COVID years, which one was available, period. I seem to have had much better results with keeping Japanese beetle populations down on the years...

Same. Was hoping someone would post using one! :ROFLMAO: With the top of the drum spinning toward you, it'd be ejecting all branches forward. Seems you could make a nice pile of sticks every 1/4 or 1/2 acre, and then just run around with a wagon or loader to retrieve the bundles.

The biggest factor, which I guess I failed to mention because it's not really a yearly chore, is to get your pH right. Most will require lime to get their pH on-target, and the great news is that lime is the cheapest of all the lawn ammendments you'll ever need. I even had the tech's at my...

I can offer a lot of advice based years of maintaining a quality cool season turfgrass lawn, namely tall fescue for our local climate. Most of this probably translates over to Bermuda, but you'll definitely want to lean on local knowledge. A perfect lawn via mass distribution of chemical is...

There I go, playing the dinosaur again...

I could've sworn that post showed up under MasseyRider's name very early this morning. Not sure what's up with the name change, that appeared after he posted in the wee hours. Maybe a bot impersonating him, or more likely, Massey hiding from one of his many ex-girlfriends. :p

I've also kept my eyes peeled for a good fallen branch solution for many years, as I have about 100 trees scattered across our nearly-golf course quality lawn, and lose a few full days per year to picking up fallen branches. But one thing I've realized is the time of year you're stuck doing...

This is the one I have. $25 gets the job done. Been using the same one many times per year for about 10 years, but I think I did have to replace or repair the 9V battery connector pigtail once, a few years back...

There are some mighty inexpensive digital optical tach's on Amazon and eBay, which will serve you well. Stick a piece of white tape on the PTO shaft, point the tach at it, and you'll know your exact PTO speed. Just make sure the one you're buying covers the range of speeds you're interested in...

Just making up for the 9 months of drought we had, starting last summer and running right up into April. :ROFLMAO: Of course, it's nicer when it's spread out over the year, rather than getting all inside of just a few weeks.

I’m leaving brown tire stripes in parts of my lawn that haven’t been this wet since 2011. I haven’t had the ZTR stuck yet, this year, but I’ve come close.

Lol… the first one must’ve been tricky, tho!

That's definitely the way to go, when felling. But when cutting logs on the ground, I just carry two wedges, one in each back pocket. If you choose the time to insert them appropriately, they never need more than a tap or two, usually using one wedge to tap the other into place. I always have...

One of the peculiarities of the Kawasaki V-twin used on most ZTR's, and maybe the Briggs is similar, is that the muffler is right next to the clutch. Even more importantly, the welds between the muffler and the mounting bracket thereof, point right at the clutch. Of course, when a muffler...

I'm not sure how much it matters, but used motor oil has some pretty nasty carcinogens in it, stuff you might not want running off into your well at the rate of a gallon a season. All of those corrosive combustion deposits that come from blow-by, etc. Might be worth using new oil, and even...

That's better! Contacting... What's the time required to swap one of these onto a new tractor? Wondering if it makes sense to ask seller to just haul my tractor out there and do the change-over right on-site. Two birds, one stone: 1. Make sure nothing critical to install is left on...

By comparison to what I was describing in that paragraph, a Wrangler might as well be a minivan. :p I was painting the picture of dropping the kids off in something that sounds like this:

I'm not even sure what this response to my post means. :ROFLMAO: Why is it written in response to my post?

With sufficient ballast hanging off the back, the load on the front axle can be kept low.

No worries on power beyond, already have that for some of my other implements (e.g. dump wagon). More concerned with any backhoe subframe-specific components. Location I saw listed was Wilksboro NC, which is a 16 hour round trip from here, but I have LTL trucking accounts for my business, so...

No answers here on anything specific to NH or your tractor, but as far as blowing the fuse and melting, some basic theory: Fuses operate on temperature, not current. They're rated for current, which yields a predictable temperature when all connections are clean and tight, but they're...

I see that. Might be a good buy, if complete and ready to roll. But I'm honestly not sure how to verify that from the information and photos given. If it needs $1500 in miscellaneous missing dealer-only bracketry to get it installed, then it's not such a great deal. Any suggestions on how to...

Just out of curiousity, have you noticed the going rate on those 385's? The reality of my situation is that it might make sense to buy a backhoe at $5k or $8k, if it's ready to use and needs no work. But at the $15k price of a new 385 hoe, I'd might as well just hire the work out.

I was going to write, "If her neck ain't sore by the time you get there, you were driving too slow!" Then I realized Massey's just going to come along and say the exact opposite. :p

I have ZF 8HP70's in all three of our daily drivers, but all programmed to behave very differently. All great transmissions, but I really like the way they set it up in the SRT 392, with shifts so crisp it chirps the tires up thru 4th gear under any moderately-hard accelleration. You feel...

Dandelions are easy. I have some direct neighbors that look like they must be growing the things to harvest, but not a single dandelion in my yard. Getting rid of them is easy: Year 1: Spray SURGE in the fall, a 3-point boom sprayer works best. Year 2 early spring: Apply a pre-emergent weed...

I've mowed over countless snakes and baby bunnies, and one or two box turtles hiding in deep grass on the edge of our wetlands. It makes me wince every time, I truly hate it when it happens, but stopping distance at full speed is not sufficiently quick to avoid these things when they pop up...

Reliable or not, I really hate the feel of those CVT’s. Heck, I don’t even like the 8sp tranny’s when coupled with low ratio rear ends, like you find on most pickups and SUV’s today, as they shift so soft you almost can’t feel them. Am I weird for enjoying the feeling of being kicked in the...

Yes, mulching decks are almost always worse than standard side-discharge decks, when it comes to clogging with grass. But I mow wet and damp grass every few days for months at a time, since those are our local conditions, and never have an issue with clogging. If you do, I suspect you’re...

:ROFLMAO: Those things can really go quite a distance, and be awfully hard to find, when they do! I had the idler tension spring pop off my Deere deck once, and the damn thing must have gone close to 80 feet before the grass slowed it to a stop. Given I didn’t see it fly, I had no idea even...

At one point, I looked at ditching both the truck and the sedan, and compromising on a Durango SRT (500 hp 6.4L Hemi) to replace two vehicles with one, which is similar width and height to an Explorer or Maverick. It's rated to tow 8700 lb., which is less than my Ram 1500 (11k#), but still...

That's a very interesting design, but I have to imagine a tracked ZTR is going to tear up the lawn pretty badly in the turns, no?

Too bad it's drain line. For smaller line (e.g. irrigation and wiring), I have a process that direct-buries the line with no digging other than a starting and ending hole for making the connections. Made from a subsoiler and piece of conduit, total investment less than $100 and way less 1...

I will, next year. My wife is 49. :D And yes, every birthday is followed by, "hey, I've never fooled around with a __-year old, before."

I'm just the right age to have learned with pencil on vellum in high school, then worked with ink on mylar in my early career, and then graduated to 2D and then 3D CAD as I worked my way through college. I spend most of my week in CAD now, either modeling for simulation, or modeling and drawing...

A breast aged 50 years or higher. :p

I design equipment used for testing things like aircraft, tanks, and missiles for radio hardening, EM susceptibility, to threats like EM pulse weapons, nuclear blasts, etc. My customers, who specify and execute these tests, are all working under the assumption that the first strike in any...

Highly variable, both by part of the yard and time of year. This is an old house (one of our additions is 250 years old this year, the oldest part is probably 291 years), so no earth moving or grading was done around the house when it was built. This means that most of the property is really...

That would be nice. My summer fuel usage is obscene, I just had a $200 fuel run yesterday, roughly evenly split between the pickup truck and a few gas cans in the bed. I don't mind the cost as much as the hassle. If I were buying a new mower today, I'm sure I'd at least consider an electric...

My kids get angry with me if I stick the cerial box on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinets. "Hey dad, where's the mower?"

I've honestly never done this, I always order a build for exactly what I want, or have one transferred from another dealership if there happens to be one of the exact configuration somewhere else in inventory. I suspect those who take one off the lot have a lot more leverage for negotiation...

Yep... different world. Land of cheesesteaks, soft pretzels, Ben Franklin... and football fans who won't hesitate to beat up Santa. Although I actually live in the rural 'burbs 30 miles north of the city, my particular neighborhood has no lot smaller than 4 acres, and most are closer to 10...

We don't grow vegetables. They're flower and shrub gardens, cosmetic only. Yes, it's vain, but it makes my wife and guests happy. Speaking of which, the gardener is actually here today.

When I read "on", I thought it was a typo. "For sure, me meant 'in', right?" Nope! :ROFLMAO: Hey TMK... they rust less if you put the in the container, over winter! :p

The most fun I've ever had with less than 500 horsepower. :ROFLMAO:

Definitely. If you're only doing 15 hours per year, you just need the cheapest mower made, no matter what it costs per hour to run it. There is not enough usage to ever save on hourly operating cost. But I'm surprised your hours are that low. I put about 100 hours per year on my ZTR mowing...

Do yourself a favor and start writing birthdates on your batteries with a paint marker or engraver, if they're not already marked as such. You're going to want to keep track, as the OEM batteries age over a presumed 3 - 5 year lifespan.

Agreed. Also, the gen.2 Dakota was a great looking truck, but the gen.3 was just terribly ugly. What's interesting is that the reliability of the Ram's went way up with the Daimler takeover right around that time. All my buddies owned mid-90's Rams, with all their rear diff and transmission...

That seems like a good option. I guess I have some learning to do, never even looked at how these things attach, compatibility, etc.

Honestly, not that bad if you get a full season out of them. I burn $500 - $600 in gasoline mowing 3+ acres each year. What's the OEM battery cost? It'll be interesting to see how their total lifetime cost compares to total lifetime cost of new aftermarket batteries each year. I predict OEM...

Really? No backhoe owners/buyers, here?

I used to hang those things up, in the middle of the lawn away from the birch and elm trees that were getting decimated by those damn beetles. They worked, until occasionally some critter (skunk? racoon?) would find them, tear the bottom out of the bag for a snack, and let any live ones...

All true, but really depends as much on deck material and thickness, as fab'd versus stamped. You're equating fab'd decks with thicker steel, which is usually true, but some stamped decks are also a lot heavier than others. Deere's "7-iron" decks come to mind, stamped out of 7-gauge steel...

I don't know anything about orange mowers, but Deere did indeed make different variants of their riding mowers for sale in big-box stores. Lots of troublesome cost-cutting items, to try to meet the prices dictated by buyers at HD and Lowes. They should have just walked away from those offers...

Other than mid to late summer, our grass is always wet. I mowed today, it hasn't rained since last week, and it was still wet and sticky. It clumps in every crevace under the deck like concrete, over time.

Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo!

I've been doing the same off and on for years, not as religiously as I should, but there are only so many hours in each week. I've taken to jamming a big wood block (LVL section) under the rig after lifting, ever since having had a hose failure on my loader while lifting a brush hog / rotary...

I have a Herd M12 spreader that I use for fertilizer 6x per year. Yes, the tractor gets a lot of fertilizer all over the back end, whether actual granules or just massive amounts of dust depends on what I’m spreading, but it’s all nasty and corrosive. I have a routine of blowing everything off...

Nothing to offer on your decision, CalG, other than it sounds like you already prefer using the Bobcat. I'd keep the walk-behind as a back-up mower for when the Bobcat is down for repair, if the storage space isn't a problem, but sell it if I wanted that space for something else. Not enough...

Train him to use the neighbor's yard! "New roach spray... doesn't kill them, but fills them with self-doubt as to whether they're in the right house."

Yes, if the tractor is stored indoors and kept dry. Hydro oil sees no corrosive combustion blow-by particulates, and the primary degrading factor is usually moisture picked up from sittig outdoors. Many run the same hydro oil for 10 years at a time, with no issues. In fact, I think the ATF I...

I've got a few projects piled up, where a backhoe would be real handy. When I bought my tractor, I skipped the $15k added cost of the backhoe, thinking I'd not get enough use out of it to make it worth the expense and storing the thing. That might still be the case, but at least in the...

So, about that racoon....

Assuming filler cap is atop valve cover, like nearly any other engine, you're not going to be able to judge oil fill level by looking in there. Can you at least find information on dip stick effective length, and make up your own substitute? You can buy unmarked dipsticks that you cut and...

I bought an RS Zest to teach my kids to sail. Daughter loves it, but doesn't have time for it anymore, due to other activities. Son never really took to it.

I am a sailor, but racing dinghies only, these days. No marine motors, anymore. 😀

Yes, I will usually do some maintenance on any piece of borrowed equipment. But I always tell the owner what I'm going to do before I do it, in case they don't want me to.