Thanks for the suggestions Leonz. Don't get me wrong I am pleased overall with the performance of this mower especially for the price. I just cant understand why they would use such thin steel for the roller.
The only part of the mower that is in contact with the ground should be able to roll over rocks and not be dented that easily. I am considering adding a tail wheel assembly as you have suggested. I don't have a hydraulic press to attempt to straighten my roller. And a replacement roller would end up in the same condition unless they are making them out of thicker steel than the original. You mentioned I would lose the artificial pressure gradient / vacuum with the tail wheel assembly. How would that effect the mowers performance ?
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Hello rims421,
The thing is that the ground that these units roll over in Europe have been picked absolutely clean of rocks over the many years that a farm or vineyard has been operating so they have no where near the amount of glacial rock that we have over here.
The faster way to do this to use a length of black iron pipe using a torch to heat the original rear roller and just push it over the existing damaged roller and then you can use it with zero issues after you run a bead of weld around it or use a pair of slugs welded to the original roller to hold the sleeve.
Adding a tail wheel assembly without front pneumatic casters to provide a level plane for the mower at all times would be counter productive as the flail mower would always want to roll forward simply because the rear of the flail mower would be higher than the front of the flail mower.
If you construct a carrying frame to bypass the need for a rear roller you will have no issues
as long as it has the 2 or 4 pneumatic casters that can be adjusted using flat washers and fine threaded bolts and nuts to adjust the mowing height.
After this is done the three point hitch simply becomes a method to carry and pull the flail mower for you.
Sliding a piece of black iron pipe over the damaged rear roller and smacking it with 2 by 4 and a persuader as the rear roller is heated is the quicker of the two options for you as you can buy heavy wall black iron pipe and then all you have to do is remount it on the rear roller mounting arms.
If you have a machine shop nearby or a friend that has a a hydraulic press a big pizza bribe to help fix the rear roller using the black iron pipe sleeve wont take long to do.
Later on you could always mount pneumatic casters on the rear of the flail mower shroud in the following manner:
The 2-4 pneumatic rear casters would be mounted on a piece of angle iron that would be bolted to the rear portion of the flail mower shroud.
The angle iron would have to be one continuous piece of 6" or 8" inch 1/4" angle iron that strengthens the rear of the flail mower shroud and be bent to the proper angles to allow the mower to remain horizontal at all times once the top link is leveled using a torpedo level on the gear box.
Your also going to have to plan to bolt a piece of 6" or 8" flat stock the width and length of the angle iron you use on the inside of the flail mower shroud to maintain the rigidity of the flail mower shroud.
Using fine thread 3/8 bolts and nuts and red Loctite to secure the flat stock to the angle iron
will prevent the steel plate and angle iron from loosening.
You would need to drill two rows of bolt holes in the flat stock and the angle iron attached to the flail mower shroud to properly attach it to avoid any issues with it.
This would or could be a winter project I guess but the quicker fix is the sliding the steel pipe sleeve over the existing rear roller using the smoke wrench to heat the rear roller to allow the pipe to slide over it with a persuader and a block of hardwood.
You would need to make sure that the opposing mounting stub is never damaged if you are sliding the pipe slug over the roller vertically unless you have a good heavy vise to hold it over several moves sliding the sleeve over the roller.
It will be simpler-actually the best way- rent a pipe vise to do the work as you can have a level plane to slide the steel pipe sleeve over the roller gradually OR with a helper heat the rear roller and push it into the sleeve using hard wood blocking with a hole cut in the blocking to accept the rear roller mounting stub. Then you can put a bead of weld around both ends using a gas welder to braze it or use a heliarc welder to weld several small short beads around both ends of the black iron pipe. Brazing the ends would be simpler and less damaging as you are unable to ground the weldment adequately to heliarc weld it.
All large flail crop shredders of all types-cup/scoop knife, side slicer knife etc., use hydraulics to lift and lower the flail shredder wheel sets to adjust the mowing height.
