**** Branch

[Baby Grand]

To the OP: sorry to hear about your bit of bad luck on the B.

A friend from work had the same problem with his B, immediately upon getting it. It didn't have 5 hrs on the clock and needed a new rad & fan. Then he put plywood in the opening in front of the rad where the stick got in from below. Poor design as that should be guarded, IMHO. I checked this on my L when I got it, and there is no openings a stick can get into, unless it punches through the grill completely.

On my 3rd or 4th day out with my L, I punched a branch through the grill while moving some brush. Never knew it happened until I shut her down for the day and saw a silver dollar sized hole and the surrounding grill bady deformed. Turns out the grill is a very soft and thin bit of plastic. I got lucky - it only pushed the battery around a little - no damage to the radiator. Made me realize that the grill is not protection for anything heavier than tall grass or twigs.

A metal grill fabrication job is on my to-do list as well as some protection for the undersides. I'd like to make up some sort of skid plate/guard to prevent sticks getting in from underneath when I'm moving brush piles or working in the woods.

 

[sandman2234]

How do you figure that??
Seem like a couple inches of forward travel is the difference between encountering the fan, & it being pushed into the radiator. Don't know anyone that has that kind of reaction time... :confused2:

Ok, maybe, depending on what he was doing at the time. I was just thinking that maybe he was listening to the radio while bushhoging and the radio covered up the initial scrapping noise as the stick slid up under the tractor, before it ever got to the fan. Typically a stick will make wop sound when it encounters a tractor, or a scrapping noise as it approaches the radiator (sliding on the undercarriage), but granted, it is usually hard to hear.
I guess I was just trying to make a point that IF the Kyle was listening to a radio, then it may have been a expensive tune to hear.
Typical tractor operations should be made at a speed that will allow you to react to objects. However this doesn't do much for "getting the job done", so most people tend to put that one aside for the better accepted one which is "got it done this fast ___________"
Everything is a trade off, and Kyle got the worse end of that trade this time.
David from jax