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I always carry top-quality dirt to rub on injuries. I have been thinking about the first aid issue now that I have a baby son, and I believe it's time for the wife and me to find a course and get some decent supplies. I can tell you one thing I've learned: always, ALWAYS keep a stash of actual...

I have tried that with magnolias, but the tap root goes straight down, and getting to it with a saw is not much easier than digging it out completely. Halfway to China. My hat is off to your friend.

States have long arm statutes which enable their courts to assert jurisdiction over defendants in other states. This may apply to a PA dealer selling to an OH customer.

That is very sound advice. It could apply in this case, and a lawyer can tell OP.

Lot of non-lawyers giving legal advice. I'm a lawyer. The correct advice is: talk to a lawyer. In your jurisdiction. It's a good idea to research on your own first. Look at the criminal statutes. See if you can find a site explaining civil fraud in your jurisdiction. It's also smart to look...

Three resistors, two transistors, and a capacitor. I don't know if Kubota's ECM is digital.

I forgot: the ECM also blows a horn if the mower overheats. There is a temperature gauge on the control panel, though.

When you read the stuff below, it's important to remember that there is a distinction between preventing ignition and shutting the engine down. The ECM does only three things. 1. Checks the safety switches and prevents the mower from starting if it doesn't like what it sees. 2. Shuts the...

Unless it's designed to fail, like the Ford water pump.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird that appliances are INFERIOR to the ones made in 1965? Is technology really supposed to to BACKWARD? That's when my grandparents built their house. Never changed the washer, dryer, oven, stove, either deep freeze, or the USED refrigerator they put in...

Estate Executor Going Through Fuddy's Stuff: What was WRONG with this guy?

I bought a Samsung fridge for a rental house. I could not figure out how to turn it on. Go to the website. Do this. Do that. And it wasn't even a smart fridge. I left it alone, figuring the tenant would find the answer. I hope their refrigeration branch goes bankrupt.

Remember being able to see your doctor TODAY? What happened to that? "Doc, I may have a melanoma on my arm. I need it looked at fast." "Good day sir and I hope you are having a nice day there in America. We are having wonderful weather here in Mumbai. The doctor will be able to see you in...

The part about the doctor being a nurse is absolutely true. Because my wife had a baby this year, we have had all sorts of appointments, and I would say we saw actual doctors 25% of the time.

I did exaggerate. They didn't get the name wrong.

Ford's clever answer to the problem of coolant intrusion was to put a second gasket around the water pump. So when the first gasket fails, you are supposed to drive to a mechanic before the second gasket fails.

I inherited a Ford Explorer with a 3.5 engine. Very nice car, when it works. Ford put the water pump inside the engine. I am not kidding. Replacing it is a major repair you can't do at home unless you're in the 99th percentile. The water pump is expected to last something like 80,000 miles, or...

You make an appointment with your doctor, who later turns out to be a nurse. Your nurse is part of a conglomerate that already has all your information. You have to fill out the information again online anyway. You get to the office, and you have to provide the same information at an electronic...

The unnecessary and expensive ECM on my Kubota mower appears to be dead and: 1. it shouldn't exist, because its entire job can be done with components costing under $2; 2. it costs $340+; 3. Kubota provides no schematic; 4. Kubota has not given its mechanics a method of testing it, so the...

I had no idea. Now things make slightly more sense to me.

But ZTraks are zero-turns.

The first time I ran my zero-turn, I only ran over one shrub.

Thanks for the help. One nice thing about having so many vendors sell the same mower is that if you don't like the manual you got, you can find a better one.

The BCRL-155 flail mower I ordered has been shipped, so I am trying to get ready. The manual says the mower ships dry. I don't know if that means they don't even include a jug of fluid on the pallet or what, so I sent an email. Even if they send something along, I am concerned it will be used...

It's weird how "zero-radius turn" turned into "zero-turn" and then into "zero-steer."

Here's an interesting thing my dad taught me: insurance companies hire mediocre lawyers. They avoid the worst, and they won't pay for the best. Generalization, of course. There is a guy on firearms forums who holds himself out as a guru. I looked him up, and he does insurance work. That...

I would not say that. A lot of the time, the defendants know exactly what they did wrong, deserve to be sued into poverty, and are just hoping the victim isn't industrious enough to fight back. I represented a little guy who was fired by Winn-Dixie for working off the clock. He worked off the...

Journalists who say "moderate Republicans." No one ever says "moderate Democrats." It's annoying how journalists try to make the right look bad. After the USSR fell, I saw some idiot on network TV refer to hard-line communist holdouts as right-wingers. Here's one: the Haagen-Dazs 14-ounce...

Gun buybacks. I know other people find this annoying, too. You can't buy something back if you never owned it. Another one: people who say "times more." If something costs three times as much as something else, they say "three times more." No, three times more would be four times as much. How...

Clients are almost always the slimiest people in the courtroom.

I'm a lawyer, and so was my grandfather. He took tort cases. Long ago, he was driving someone around Eastern Kentucky, where he lived, and his passenger noticed how poor the area was. He asked my grandfather where people got money to survive. My grandfather said, "Insurance companies." Funny...

Glass recycling isn't profitable.

The town I lived in before moving to the farm passed out recycling bins to the residents, in different colors. I think red was for paper, but I'm not sure, because I didn't use the bins. The guys on the truck couldn't have cared less. The bins were decent quality, and they could be useful for...

I tried to find out what the difference between a BCRL-155 and a TRIM-56 was, and they told me it was negligible. I'm looking forward to getting this thing. I have a bush hog, but it's enormous, it's very dangerous, and all it does is rip things off coarsely about 8" above the ground. I want...

They pick it up, but they leave poop and urine on the sidewalk.

Yes. I took their advice.

Don't worry about it. I mean, health care is all free in California, right?

Figuring things would never get cheaper, only more expensive, I ordered a Victory ditch mower. On advice from Victory, given that I have a Kubota L3710 with 30 PTO HP, they suggested the BCRL-155 (60"), which is a standard duty job that weights 672 lbs. They have a more expensive mower called...

Ripping the spring out is free and takes less than two minutes, and a plastic can will last decades. Plus it won't put rust rings on your shop floor, and it won't scratch up painted surfaces. Plastic doesn't dent, either. I threw out a couple of ancient plastic pre-nanny cans this year, and...

Here, we are supposed to put those in the trash, which, happily, is what I would do regardless of what the law said. Unless I could feed them directly to sea turtles.

Okay! 😉

You don't really want to hear about a local law no one actually obeys. It can be really difficult disposing of oily trash properly. You really have to work to keep oil and fuel from slopping out and landing on things like weeds and fresh stumps.

In case anyone cares, I have tried the spring-removal method demonstrated in the video I posted, and it really works. My cans flow fast enough to suit me until a better solution comes along, and they aren't leaking the way they did with Amazon and Ebay nozzles. First, you pull the spring out...

I have been avoiding reading the news for quite a while now, but back when I was still reading it, my best friend and I used to call each other with California and Northeastern horror woke stories. We always say the same thing: "I think it's great." I remember reading a California story about...

None of this should be allowed to happen, but then yesterday my wife and I ate at the Cheesecake Factory, and we had to ask for straws. They gave us nice, leaky paper ones. To save sea turtles, which never, ever see American straws in the water. The world has gone nuts. It's all about the pose...

I wouldn't conclude anything based on 13 months. That's about around 5,000 hours, which is nowhere near the bloated estimates the greenies used to force us to buy imperfect LED's. I wouldn't be impressed by a car that ran 50,000 miles. Everyone should Google "Dubai LED bulb."

I have not had a tube fail, but the bulbs die fast.

It's not conserving energy that I mind. It's doing unbelievably stupid performative things that purport to conserve energy but actually do way more harm than good. Greenies can never wait for good technology. They have to force change NOW. Hence the obsolete curly bulbs that don't work and fill...

I came here to find out which part of California you're in.

I live in an extremely red area, and I have to take my garbage to the dump ("recycling center") because there is no trash pickup. When it comes to the dumpsters, the attendants at the dump are realists, not flakes. You can't put a large tire in the dumpsters, but they don't care about the little...

Here's something I really hate: paying a professional to do something because he should be better at it than I am, and then finding out he knows less than I do and does a worse job.

I am looking at plain old flail mowers, not complicated contraptions that run on hydraulic power.

Here's one I hate: "Google is your friend." Some idiot who doesn't even support the forum appoints himself to be bandwidth cop to scold people for posting. Anyone who has ever said, "Google is your friend," should be banned from the web. In fact, any kind of post Karening by jerks who aren't...

I love my wife very much, but you just can't allow a woman to tell you unabridged stories. Not if you're actually listening. You would lose your mind. I don't like interrupting people, but with women, it's essential to my mental health.

The famous Hollywood procurer Scotty Bowers said Miss Hepburn spent a lot of time with women.

Seems like the recovery process takes two years on its own.

My dad had a big law firm, and two of the attorneys were female. When they appeared in court together, they had to talk on the phone the night before so each one could find out what the other was wearing.

She had somehow gotten the impression that I had already proposed during one of our video chats. Romance is not her strong suit. She forgets our anniversaries. She also forgets her birthday. It's fantastic.

Just dumped another ton of old logs on the pile. I can't recommend the aroma of this rotting wood. It has the pleasant smell of burning oak, but it also smells like someone found a way to set fire to pee.

Here's what today's pile looked like 90 minutes ago. I would say it was 25 feet long. I paid a crew $7500 for a day and a half, cutting tall trees that were too close to the house. They made three piles. The biggest burn pile probably weighs twice what this one did, and I still haven't burned...

I have all sorts of rotten hay I could put out there.

Thanks. Sadly, the grass here is bahia. You think if I toss bahia seed out there it will grow on the ashes?

I have three burn areas. I want to reduce to two. When I burn debris, the grass takes forever to come back. Is there a solution?

My wife and I met online, and she was in another country. We had to keep getting together overseas. Her passport was worthless, and covid made it worse. We started talking seriously about marriage, so I bought a ring. Really nice one. Then I went to Egypt to meet her. We were on a cruise on...

My dad did not pass on a lot of wisdom to me, but he did tell me this: all women are crazy. It is not quite true, but it's so close to true, it might as well be. Even the good ones are nuts. If women stopped voting, America would be a paradise.

When bloodmobile ghouls bug me as I'm walking, I tell them it's unnatural for a lawyer to GIVE blood.

I bought new nozzles, and the threads were too deep. This prevents the lids from sealing against the cans, so diesel pours out. Frustrating. I found a guy on Youtube who pulls the springs out of the original spouts.

Here's one my wife thinks is funny: "sucking hind tit." "My fat aunt got ahead of us in the buffet line, and long story short, we ended up sucking hind tit."

Nice work. Might want to upload smaller picture files. I am still waiting for some of these to come through. In case you ever decide to touch it up in areas, I have used Rust-Oleum Kubota Orange tractor paint, and it has proven very tough.

It should be fine for the Victory Trim-56.

The tractor is a Kubota L3710 with 30 PTO horsepower. The web says the flow rate is 7.8 gpm. How does that relate to the question?

There is no point in arguing with dirty people. I should know better. They never listen, and it makes them very angry. "My dog's tongue is clean!" "There's no point in washing after pooping unless you see poop on your hands!" "I don't have to wash after using a public toilet if I only pee!"...

I'm an idiot, but you're wiping your rear end with your skin? Man, you need to look into the way germs work. Rinsing your behind is great, but poop is full of fat, and it does not all come off with water. You think the water the bidet leaves behind is clean? Read a book some day.

In case anyone wants to know, a Toto toilet can swallow a KILO of poop. That's 2.2 pounds, people. Paper doesn't scare a Toto. Don't know about septic tanks, however. My last pumpout took place after at least 7 years, I poured cooking oil down the sink all the time, and the tank was normal.

I can't believe you are serious. You must have some really dry poops, my man. My septic tank can drop dead. I am not smearing my hand with poo.

My wife had a normal delivery. I have not had the courage to add up the post-insurance cost, but I am guessing $30,000 for prenatal through 4-month pediatrician checkup. Let's not discuss diapers, painting the nursery, furniture, 85 kinds of grease, 4,000 rompers... My son is wonderful...

Emissions devices are so great, but somehow lots of people want to get pre-emissions tractors, and nobody sold their pre-emissions tractor to get a post-emissions tractor!

I am thinking about the claim that emissions systems are good for 60,000 cycles. Has anyone else here ever replaced a "15,000-hour" LED bulb after a few months? To save everyone the math, 15,000 hours are 20 months, 24/7. They routinely fail after 6 months in light (no pun intended) use. My...

This is why we have epidemics.

Dude. You're wiping with your hand.

I have wasted a lot of money in my life, but I try not to. It's sometimes hard to decide what is waste and what is simply not being too stingy to enjoy life. It bothers me to pay too much for antiperspirant or garbage bags (I pay 7 cents each), but when my wife and I went to Singapore and...

It's 60,000 unless the parts break down unexpectedly, and that has happened to a lot of people. It could be less than 1. You could start your tractor tomorrow and find out you have an expensive, time-wasting problem. It's not a simple issue. The manufacturer's rosy predictions about part...

The OP didn't tell the end of the story. I hope he didn't end up in the funny farm.

In my case, "hack job" is probably better than what I do now.

I am paying more attention to the many people who have had expensive emissions-parts failures.

The flail mower puzzle is confusing. I think I will pick up a Victory Trim-56 next month. It looks like it will work for me.

You can definitely have it as long as you're single.

As I was saying above, I would be content just to get the sides trimmed. That alone would save me considerable aggravation. The mower will be mostly for getting rid of brush with stems up to maybe an inch in diameter. If it helped with hedges, it would just be a side dish. The Sabre Samurai...

Sounds like it would do the job for me, well enough to make driving the tractor out of the shop worth it. Thanks.

I'm thinking more along the lines of $3000-$5000, total. A sickle mower would eat an awful lot of that all by itself.

I'm already planning to get a flail mower for brush. I thought being able to zip around the perimeter of the house and trim the sides of the edges would be a bonus. I might set out some privacy hedges later. The house hedges are your typical house-length hedges. The privacy hedges could to...

This will probably sound crazy, but can a flail mower be used to trim the sides of hedges? I have a power hedge trimmer, but I am really bad at trimming. My hedges look like they have some kind of disease. It would be wonderful if I could tilt a flail mower and drive down a hedge, making it...

The remote valves only require a 10-amp fuse, so I think I'm okay.

It's switched. The Add-a-Circuit was installed yesterday, but I want to use the original box so the cover will fit. I ordered to $7 terminals.

My African wife thinks it's unbelievably funny that I use "croak" to mean "die."

My dad always gave them three days.

I dunno. Do I really want to gamble 7 dollars? I can almost buy a burger at Wendy's for that.

Thanks. I have been looking at that kind of part, but I haven't been able to find out if they are universal. Think it will fit a Kubota?

Thanks, but you still need some place to plug it in.

Today while going through hell trying to run a hot wire to my W.R. Long remote "kit" and install the final hose clamp to keep a hose off the right rear tire, I learned something interesting. After going through the misery of running the valve's hot wire around and under the tractor to the fuse...

The idea of running a tractor at very high RPM's to help the environment IS nutty. And it comes from the same people who want us to conserve everything, bathe rarely, and basically live in huts. My L3710 runs very happily at 1500 RPM. If I had to run it at mowing speeds in order to do the regen...

John Deere is looking like the best bet right now. I would just have to get over my not-completely-rational hatred of the company.

I love their HSS drills for situations when I fully intend to use them abusively or incorrectly, or when the material I'm drilling isn't demanding. Drywall. Wood. Aluminum. Plastic. I think buying them and using them as first-string drills in a machine shop would be insane, however.

I got some miniature Doyle pliers that seem just as good as US-made stuff. The handtrucks seem to be better than the Chinese ones sold at Home Depot and Lowe's. The one I bought recently is considerably sturdier than one I bought at Home Depot in the late 90's. I picked up some long Icon...

My two pesos: I am getting rid of a 1991 JD 430 diesel because I picked up a used Kubota ZD326 zero turn. I cannot speak regarding other diesel garden tractors, but as a mower, the Kubota is in a different and far superior universe. I can move about twice as fast now. I don't know if the...

I considered TYM because of the lack of complexity. They have underbuilt front axles, problems with the wheels falling off, and all sorts of customers out there telling horror stories about getting parts and repairs. I was looking at a TYM T574 for $25K with a grapple and 800 hours, but I kept...

This is really the only part of this post that speaks to me.

It looks like John Deeres are easier to find, but I have concerns about the difficulty of working on them.

Thanks. I have been checking Tractorhouse. I need something with no cab, and that really narrows it down. It's probably easier to buy a loader and have it installed than to find a good used L5030 with no cab and a loader.

My main issue is lifting, since that is nearly all I do, and it has to be HST because of the nature of the work. The L5030 lifts a lot more than the L3710. It also has around 40% more PTO power for a flail mower.

You are so lucky. I just went through torment fixing a starting issue with my Kubota. I know almost everything about the starting system now. The brake switch is NC, which means "normally closed." It is normally closed ("on") when the controller will not let the mower start. When you push the...

Looks pretty good! I just realized the one I was looking at has no loader, so that's a problem. I don't really see myself installing a loader, and I don't know if Kubotas without loaders came with valves. I would have to find a loader, have it installed, and then possibly put valves in it.

The more I learn about machinery, the more I realize I do not want emissions gadgets, a computer controller, or any similar electronic junk. People say these contraptions are reliable, but on the other hand, the web is jammed with other people complaining about how they have failed and ended up...

Really cool. Homemade jerky is so much better. Are you using oxygen-absorbing packets to protect the meat?

I will post a shot of the starter system's schematic. I am not sure if I should post my analysis, because I think I would end up getting flak from people who think it's wrong yet have not done the work to find out.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a mechanic, so if you listen to me, you may die or ruin your mower. I recently bought a Kubota ZD326 diesel mower with 229 hours on the meter. When I arrived to look at it, of course, the meter was frozen, but the mower looks like it has under 1,000 hours on it, so I bought...

Africa is really big. By air, it's over 4,000 miles from Capetown to Cairo.

Regarding credit cards, I got a good tip from serious travelers. The Schwab debit card doesn't charge special fees abroad. I keep a special Schwab account for travel. It's also nice because I can limit the money in the account, so if something fishy happens, nobody can get access to bigger accounts.

The flight from JFK to Hong Kong became the longest because the Ukraine war rerouted it to avoid Russian air space. I believe Flightradar is wrong. https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/cathay-pacific-longest-flight-russia-b2046269.html

We had to get married over Zoom. In the past, if you wanted to get married over video in the US, you and your bride both had to be on US soil. A county in Utah dropped that requirement, and people like my wife and me swamped them. She was in Africa, and I was here in my bedroom. We had Zoom...

As has been noted in other posts, tourists in Europe are now like ants on a dead dog. There are swarms of them. And because India and mainland China have gotten more prosperous, there are a lot of tourists who suddenly have money but no idea how to act. There were signs in Europe telling...

Interesting thread. I did some overseas travel when I was young, but after that, I didn't go anywhere for many years. My Dad and I used to cross to the Bahamas on his boat, but the Bahamas don't count. Any country that will let you in with a driver's license is not a real country. I got engaged...

This seat is a little weak on the suspension. I think my butt is the suspension.

1. This guy was interested in the shiny, not just the function, and that's his right. 2. Everyone is treating him as if all that mattered to him were the way the machine worked. What he wants is his business, and he was told he was getting a new machine, which is not what he got. He has a right...

Thanks for pointing this out. My last name is not Kubota, and I don't make excavators, so I am not familiar with every part. I thought this was a thick metal part that had somehow gotten mangled. The hours are the big issue, though. Used is used.

Exactly. It's not about what other people want. It's about what you want and you paid for.

Good for you, standing by your guns to get what you want. People who don't care about dirt and scratches shouldn't tell you you have to feel the same way. If you want it painted pink and equipped with a BBQ smoker, that's what you should have.

It's in the pictures under the air cleaner. A 15% discount may seem like a lot. Well, Google "instant depreciation." It's the way the world works. That machine is no longer new, even if it's almost as good as new. I would expect at least 10% off without that chewed-up part. You can't use up...

I would not accept that as new, because it isn't, but to me it looks like a dirty almost-new machine with one part that has some scratches on it. Not anything remotely like a "POS." Do you really think it looks 20 years old? Seriously? Have you ever, once in your life, seen a machine that old...

This seat looks like it has mildew in the little wrinkles they put in it to make it look like leather. I think I may have to use bleach.

What is the best product for cleaning up the seat on a Kubota zero-turn? The seat is some kind of tough plastic. Will Armor All do it?

Now that I have mowed twice with this thing, I completely understand the chute blockers that open and close. This mower throws stuff a country mile, and a lot of the time, that's fantastic. Makes a leaf blower totally unnecessary. It even works on pavement. I assume a chute that is always...

I'm sure I would see things differently if I were running a business.

You bought large Vulcan cabinets, and I made it clear I was talking about a small Vulcan similar to the Miller. I will attach a photo. The big Vulcan looks very nice for a person who wants three machines on one cart, assuming the air space is adequate for ventilation, but I chose shopmade carts...

Until this thread was created, I had no idea other landowners lived in a different universe. I don't like my thin bahia grass, but it looks like it saves me a lot of trouble.

I appreciate the information on chute blockers. I was mystified. The old John Deere didn't need one, so the Kubota won't, either.

Here is a great example of a stupid, overpriced welding cart you should not buy. This is a Miller, and I found it online for $360+. I had something very similar from Vulcan, and it was very sturdy, but it was also stupid. I paid $100 and sold it for $50 just to make it go away. Note how...

I am using the ZD326, and it looks like some of my concerns were totally baseless. Nothing new there. 1. The deck has partitions that isolate the blades to some extent, so it confines leaves and grass somewhat. 2. Running it with stock blades chewed my leaves up pretty good. Good enough to...

Okay, this does not happen to me. I don't think it's even possible. Maybe the grass here is not capable of it. I have never seen anything stuck under my deck. I thought cleaning was for light residue.

I'm in Northern Florida, not Pennsylvania. The humidity is high, and there are often huge temperature swings between night and day. I am told this is why small engines have such problems here. I'm not the weak link, I can assure you of that. Additives, running saws dry...I've done it all. The...

The appeal of gambling mystifies me. It would mean nothing to me to win a thousand dollars, but I know from experience that I hate losing twenty. Alex Trebek said pretty much the same thing. Gamblers are amazing people. The law permits every casino to rig every game, and gamblers should know...

Yeah, I can't tell if it's a great mower or it just seems like one after a John Deere 430.

I am only as good as my search results. When I checked around, I saw big gas mower engines selling for over $4K. I mean the good ones, not the $3,000 Lowe's jobs. Far as I know, you have to go up a lot in horsepower in order to get a gas engine that will compete with a 25-HP diesel. Having used...

Sounds great, but I bought a Kubota. Thanks for the info.

What I have seen on the web are people saying that gas engines haven't lasted that long in practice. Perhaps they are wrong, or maybe they are not treating their engines as well as they should, though. Anyway, I spent $5,500 for a mower that probably has more than 2500 hours left before the...

I just got a used Kubota ZD326. I looked at new Scags, a used Gravely, and a ton of other stuff. I am highly skeptical of the claim that a homeowner can't justify getting a diesel. If you have more than an acre or two, and you plan to be around for decades, a diesel seems like a good idea to...

My first welder was a Lincoln PowerMIG 180C, which I still have. Later on, I added an AlphaTIG and a Titanium Unlimited 200. The latter machine is from Harbor Freight. It does MIG, stick, and DC TIG. I thought it would be nice to have a backup and also have more than one type of wire loaded at...

Maybe I'm wrong about the hotels paying my dad's plane fare, but the other stuff, I'm sure of.

My dad told me they used to fly him to Vegas, pick him up at the airport, comp his food and room...and he wasn't a big fish.

I am finally putting the JD 430 behind me. I got an actual mower today, as contrasted with a geriatric yard tractor that happens to have a deck attached to it. Finally, I am done with endless unexpected repairs on a machine designed to make mechanics beg for death. I found a deal I liked on a...

This looks bad.

Hmm...$340, or waste a perfectly good old license plate. I'll have to think it over.

This is a suggestion I will follow up on. I don't have the new mower yet, so I can't see how hard it is to make a chute blocker. I don't want to pay $300 for a metal flap. So I guess I could combine this with mulching blades and see what happens. My leaves are amazing. I piled up tons of them...

That is an interesting idea. The only reason I got the mulch kit for the JD was to get rid of--literally--tons of hard little oak leaves that were a nightmare to move and burn. I haven't paid any attention at all to what it does to the grass. Given the poor quality of grass here, I am not...

I don't know why a Kubota with 25 horses would bog when a JD with 20 does all right. The Gravely may have a 30-horse Kubota, but it's possible it has a 25-horse job, which means the Kubota is no worse. I will have to confirm the Gravely's specs with the dealer. I wonder if a zero-turn delivers...

It's not hard to make. The hard part is finding someone who will tell you the truth instead of handing you a lame recipe.

I'm seeing complaints that the Kubota bogs down with a mulching kit. The Gravely has a stronger engine, though.

Now I'm reading that the Kubota doesn't have enough manliness to power a mulching kit. If so, Gravely it is, I guess. I cannot survive without mulching to get rid of these oak leaves.

Web thinks both of these mowers have 7-gauge decks. The Gravely seller is asking $2400 more than the Kubota guy, so if I can manage to get to the Kubota before someone else, I will take it. Says I can see it Friday after lunch.

I would expect real grass to stick to my deck a lot more, but this stuff is like whatever the devil has in his yard in hell. Long, stringy, tough grass that looks great from 100 yards but is actually extremely thin up close.

Geez. Knives? You must have some serious crud up there in Tennessee. I have never noticed much of anything stuck to my deck here in sizzling Northern Florida.

Thanks. How are you cleaning the deck? Seems like a hose would just encourage rust. I have blowers and a big compressor.

I am still struggling to find a used diesel zero-turn to replace my aging JD 430. I wanted a Kubota ZD because they have built-in jacks, but good ones don't pop up often at realistic prices. Right now, I can get an okay deal ($8900 asking) on a Gravely Pro Turn 460 with a Kubota engine. A...

I wouldn't go near that thing if I could not burn it. I have a few like that.

When I spin the excavator too much, it tears up the ground, and the excavator sinks to where it gets stuck.

That is so true. And good deals take forever to pop up, unless you're willing to settle for anything. Back when I was just getting into machining, people on forums told me stupid things like, "Don't buy an Asian machine! Wait around! I got a lightly-used Bridgeport for $750." Those guy were so...

Seems pretty clear by now that the issue has never been resolved, and maybe it depends on the application.

You can always get a bargain if you're willing to spend your life waiting and driving.

I used the excavator again yesterday. This is the second time it has failed to get a small magnolia stump loose. Evidently, magnolia tap roots are pretty impressive. At least the excavator got enough dirt moved to get me access so I could cut roots with a Sawzall. As experience reduces my own...

This machine really sinks in my sandy yard. If I move it to a location with the blade in front of me, and then I spin it to put the blade behind me, it makes it more likely I will get stuck when I try to leave.

Planting new trees and shrubs, ripping out old ones up to a certain size, removing rocks and stumps, getting rid of the garbage the squirrels plant before it's too big...to me, that's worth $5K. Pretty standard stuff for a rural property.

My feeling is that if you have any kind of acreage at all, you can't go wrong with one of these. You just have to cope with the shortcomings and think what a Kubota would cost.

For $5,000, absolutely. I keep saying it's like having two men with shovels. It's not the answer to all my problems, but it will do a lot of things I don't want to do by hand. It's nice to see that dirt move while I sit on a cushioned seat.

I'm trying to get up to speed with my cheapo Chinese gas job. So much bad information out there. For example, people complain that the seat gets hot, so some are saying to insulate the underside of the sheet metal under the seat. But that cooks the engine, which people say is already too hot...

One of those sources says to park with the cab at 45 degrees to the tracks to provide a step to dismount on. The other says this is a critical safety error.

Behind: 5 Critical Mistakes To Avoid in a Mini Excavator In front:

1. Experts on the Internet say to keep a mini-excavator's blade behind you when digging. 2. Experts on the Internet say to keep a mini-excavator's blade in front of you when digging. Help.

I have that backward. It gives you positive feedback, so you automatically brake the machine over and over when you want to go backward or forward.

I think reversing the track controls might help. As it is, you get positive feedback when it lurches. If they were reversed, you would get negative feedback instead of pouring on more fluid.

My hydraulics can't deal with roots. Seems like this machine is fine for digging loose dirt, but forget working where there are rocks and roots. It also struggles to curl the bucket when it's pressed into dirt.

It is confusing. I am told lower flow will give less jerking without loss of power, and that the jerking is caused by putting a fast gas engine in a machine made for a 2050-RPM diesel, but I assume it would also make the crawl speed unbearable, and it's hard to believe the diesel models could...

Of course.

The official price direct from AGT through their website or Ebay is about $8500 right now. This is for the 15-horsepower models. For the extra $3500, I would have gotten a warranty. I don't have any idea how I would find a slower pump that would fit this machine.

I was using this thing today, and the treads got stuck. I would have expected a tracked machine to turn the tracks even if it couldn't go anywhere, but I was sitting in dirty sand, and I couldn't get it to go forward or back. I had to turn it until I found a way it was willing to go.

I have not changed my hydraulic fluid yet. I was putting it off until I got a new drain plug with a valve and filter on it, but now I think that's a dumb idea. If I change the fluid, I have to keep the old plug until the next fluid change, unless I want to change the fluid and then try to...

That is truly strange, because I have no problems with my boom. Thanks for the info about the filter and controls.

I don't know what it sounds like when a hydraulic pump cavitates. I would say the system was something like a quart and a half low. I will see if it makes noise tomorrow. I don't know how to put a second filter on the system. I'll have to find out and see if it's practical. I haven't even found...

I believe they are piling up at places like Ritchie Brothers.

Yesterday I picked up a new QR16K AGT 15-horse gas excavator. For $5K, there was no way to resist. I should be able to get rid of it with a minimal loss if I don't like it. I have questions, of course. 1. People are saying I should change the hydraulic fluid because the Chinese put everything...

I wonder if increasing the length of the levers would help. The shorter the levers, the more a linear displacement of the end of the lever will open the valve. Double the length of the lever, and you halve the response for a given displacement.

I broke down and bought a little AGT excavator today. It's hilarious. It has a 15-horse gas motor. Weighs a ton. It was brand new, and the guy who had it sold it very cheap, so I could not say no. I think it will be incredibly handy around the farm. Now I have to go through it and get rid of...

I know the difference between TYM and the seller.

That's not what TYM says.

That sounds like a bad idea until I consider the horrible advice human beings have given me with great confidence.

Winchester, Kentucky? Until I was a year old, I lived in Bel Air. I believe my house was across the fence from Jerry's. I was born in Winchester. I don't know what happened, but somebody convinced TYM it wasn't the owner's fault. I don't know if that means anything. Maybe it's not that hard to...

The owner has a tree service, and the tractor has a Land Pride grapple. That's how he put in 800 hours. He does pretty much the same things I do with my little Kubota, but I put in about 25 hours a year. The warranty is hard to pin down, which is another reason to talk to the dealer. TYM's site...

Dude says he will give me the number of the guy in charge of the repair at the dealership so I can ask what they know.

Here is what ChatGPT thinks: If a low-hour diesel tractor blows a head gasket and the repair includes installing a new cylinder head, that strongly suggests the original head was warped, cracked, or otherwise defective — and this was likely the root cause of the failure, not just a consequence...

Here is what Grok thinks: The most likely reason a low-hour diesel tractor's head gasket blew, assuming proper maintenance and operation, is overheating or thermal stress. Diesel engines, especially in tractors, operate under high compression and load, generating significant heat. If the...

I'll tell you what. I'd drink a case of Corona before I'd touch one Budweiser. Especially Bud Light in the Loafers.