60"Finish mower wheels/tire replacements?

[Gravy]

Toy,

You are right. TracDoc is a good guy. We're almost neighbors. Even though we'd never met, he stepped up when I asked him for snow removal backup. I still owe him some elementary welding lessons...

Gravy

 

[atwood]

I had pt put solid tires on my brush hog when I got the pt and I bought a finish mower off of TRACDOC and had a flat the first time I used it [popped the bead]. He had the tires slimed or some kind of flat sealant in them and I couldn't get them to seal back [got dirt mixed in with the sealant] ,instead of fighting those kind of tires I put solid tires on it also and have not had any problems since. I believe TracDoc is a fine fellow pter I hated to see him put his pt up for sell. I liked seeing him post from time to time.

My 425 came with solid caster tires both for the finish and brush hog mower. Normally they work Ok but sometimes the solid tire rolls off and it is a pain to put back on. Does anyone know of a trick or method to put these back on? Thankfully the casters are interchangeable between the brush hog and mower so I can at least finish the job.

 

[MossRoad]

I can't understand why you guys are rolling solid tires off of the rims. The solid tires I got from our local caster company have been abused and never hinted at rolling off the rim. Are the PT solid tires really solid?

 

[woodlandfarms]

My "solid" tires are hollow in the inside, and one shrappneled after a couple of years. but I got luck and they had replacement tires and just pressed a new one on.

 

[SELKIRK]

My 425 came with solid caster tires both for the finish and brush hog mower. Normally they work Ok but sometimes the solid tire rolls off and it is a pain to put back on. Does anyone know of a trick or method to put these back on? Thankfully the casters are interchangeable between the brush hog and mower so I can at least finish the job.

My PT finish mower came with a set of pneumatics tires that alway rolled off. PT changed them out to the solid tires. The solid tires PT has are some sort of foam and rubber compound.
Not the best things in the world. They really should put a set of tires like the ones that are made for a commercial caster deck.

I found the best way to install PT's solid rubber tire back on the rim, is to boil the tire in a pot of water. This makes it stretchy enough that it can go back over the rim. Just watch out, its hot as heck when they come out of the pot.

As rolling the tire off the rim, I have real sandy/soft soil and the tires roll when I change from forward to reverse. The tires just flex enough on the caster motion that they roll off.
It's real bad in float mode but also happens in draft if you get some dips/holes in the ground.
I really think the mower should be sold with a better/stiffer tire like the ones on commercial zero turn deck. I found some that should work and waiting for a tire question to be answered from the supplier before I order them. I let you all know if they work in the next couple of weeks.

Selkirk

 

[toy]

My 425 came with solid caster tires both for the finish and brush hog mower. Normally they work Ok but sometimes the solid tire rolls off and it is a pain to put back on. Does anyone know of a trick or method to put these back on? Thankfully the casters are interchangeable between the brush hog and mower so I can at least finish the job.

The tires on my brush hog has square shoulders, I have not had any problems with them. When I went to get the tires for the finish mower they mentioned that they had put solid rubber tires on some units that had rounded shoulders instead of the square shoulders and that some were having problems with them rolling off the rim if I am not mistaken. Any how the ones that I got for the finish mower has square shoulders also and I haven't had any problems with those either. I don't do a lot of finish mowing with the pt as I have a sears lgt riding mower that we use most of the time.

One problem that I do have with the pt mower is that the bolt axle on the rear will catch the chain link fence if I get too close to the fence and I like to get close so I don't have much weed eating to do. I have thought of a couple ways to prevent this from happening but haven't tried either one yet, I guess I need to get me a roundtuit so I can get in on it.

 

[toy]

selkirks method of heating the tires up sounds like it would make it easier to put back on, but once you get it back on it would be nice to figure out a way to keep it from rolling off again. Woodlandfarms mentioned that his had a hollow core, I don't know if mine is like that or not.

I don't know if this would be a solution to the problems with your tires rolling off the rim or not, but I was wondering if you could get two metal rings for each tire, have a hole in the center of the rings a little larger than the rims and have the outer side of the ring smaller than the outer circumference of the tire and drill mating holes through these rings and then maybe drill holes through the tires to match the holes and then bolt the rings on the tires. I don't know about drilling holes through the rubber tires though if that would be possible. Seems like I have seen racing slicks with the tires bolted to the rims to keep the rim from slipping inside the tire, maybe someone else might have a better idea, hope so.

 

[KentT]

Seems like I have seen racing slicks with the tires bolted to the rims to keep the rim from slipping inside the tire, maybe someone else might have a better idea, hope so.

They make "bead-lock" wheels, or you can get regular wheels modified to become "bead-locks". Using these wheels, the bead of the tire goes outside the rim of the wheel, then the ring bolts on, pinching the bead between the wheel and this rim.

This is done on tires/wheels where you run extremely low air pressure, allowing the sidewalls to flex. Wrinkle-wall slicks for dragsters are one example. High performance off-road vehicles (4x4, ATV, etc.) also use them because they often run very low air pressures when operating in either sand or on rocks...

If you want to risk ruining one of the caster wheels that have solid tires, you could experiment by drilling holes through the angled part of the wheel at the rim (where the bead normally seats), and put sheet metal screws through these holes into the center of the solid tire. I've seen this done with some success -- but if you ever roll it off, it will likely ruin the tire when it pulls chunks of material out where the screws went in...

 

[BobRip]

I put tubes in both finish and rough cut mower wheels. Five years and not a problem. I used to roll rough cut mower wheels off every five minutes.

 

[toy]

Kent t your description of the tires is a lot better than mine, I haven't been around that sort of stuff for a long time and back then I didn't want super traction I would rather to smoke the tires just as far as I could. Glad that I grew out of that those tires were expensive. But that is a starting point maybe for somebody to come up with an idea to keep from having the tires roll off the rims.