5ft brush hog on a 25hp compact

[Gator6x4]

Guess I am ignorant but how is using chain as top link any safer than no top link on flat ground?

It is as you say about as dangerous as running without a top link. I use a top link.

A chain could keep the rear wheel of the rotary cutter dropping into a ditch when using.

This web link as quite a few post on top links and chains a rotary cutters.

Top Link or Chain with a rotary cutter?

I used to use a top link when using my rotary cutter. I bent the support struts on the rotary cutter when traversing a little creek with a short but steep bank. I talked to a buddy about this and he recommended using a chain instead of a top link. I tried it and it works like a charm. I can...

www.nettractortalk.com

 

[scott_vt]

. Enjoy your tractor seat time. Most peaceful less stressful time provided your equipment is setup correctly and good running. No wife, no chatter of family, no depressing media news. Just peaceful quiet time. Only time it was not quiet was when I found ground hornets.

Good Evening rodneyn,
No truer words were ever spoken !

 

[RSKY]

Guess I am ignorant but how is using chain as top link any safer than no top link on flat ground?

When I was younger,.....much younger,......my dad left me in a field 5 or 6 miles from our home farm to mow. I had a gallon jug of water and a bologna sandwich in a paper bag. When he came back at lunch the tractor was, well not exactly stuck, but not movable. Front wheels on one side of a ditch, bush hog on the other side of the ditch, and the drive wheels not touching anything suspended over the ditch. I was asleep under a tree and if my uncle hadn't been with dad I would probably not be here today. THAT is how I got my reputation of getting stuck in the middle of a dry field. Forty years later I forgot about that ditch and did the same thing in the same field in the same ditch. That is when the top link got replaced with a short piece of chain.

Also when you have the top link replaced with chain you can back up to a fairly steep ditch and the back of the mower will drop down into it. Same way with backing up on a cattle pond levee. Back end of mower will be pushed up by the wheel and mow the bank much better.

One thing is that you must watch the PTO shaft when doing this and make sure it doesn't hit the body of the mower.

As for safety if you have a small tractor with a too heavy mower when you raise the 3-pt up most of the weight will still be supported by the trailing wheel.

RSKY

 

[ptsg]

Or just replace those flimsy bars they put on mowers that just get bent with chains.

Keep the top link, preferably hydraulic, so you can extend and let the mower float or retract and lift the rear of the mower to mow against embankments.

I wouldn't run without a top link attached. If the mower snags something and you need to quickly lift the mower, it will only lift half of it.

 

[Gator6x4]

Or just replace those flimsy bars they put on mowers that just get bent with chains.

Keep the top link, preferably hydraulic, so you can extend and let the mower float or retract and lift the rear of the mower to mow against embankments.

I wouldn't run without a top link attached. If the mower snags something and you need to quickly lift the mower, it will only lift half of it.

View attachment 847923 View attachment 847924

And that half will be the front. If what you hit is now at the rear and you raise rotary hop occurs.

 

[California]

Seems to me raising only the front half of the rotary mower will aim thrown material right at the operator. Just when the blade is trying to shred something solid.

I went to using a chain after sliding a few inches down an uneven slope out of control, at a slight side angle with the drive wheels in the air. Time to re-think how things were configured!