Draft control?

[IrTxRx]

The PT manual describes in great and intricate detail how to calibrate, activate and use draft control... including that it should not be used in float.

This brings up several questions:

1.) Can anyone provide real world experience with calibrating, activating and using draft control? --- seems real important for brush cutting

2.) Would my road repairs be less wavvy if I had used the float function?

3.) how does one engage the float function

 

[woodlandfarms]

I will take a stab at this... Lets see how many I get wrong...

There is page in my manual that tells how to adjust. But basically you want the front tires of the mower to lift just a bit when engaged. When I beefed up my blades I had to really adjust it to get it to float. It was set just right for that mower. I use it for mowing slopes.. Helps keep the wheels on the ground...

#2 - Maybe. I see a lot of people (and this will include me) adding extended rollers to their boxblade. Basically your are taking the short chasis of the box blade and extending it... Helps keep the box blade from over reacting to bumps an makes things smoother. I plan to do this this winter.

#3 Push your lift control all the way forward. it will click into place.

 

[ponytug]

Look up Mike O'connor's great description on another thread. It is pretty simple as Carl mentions.

Draft is great for mowing on slopes as it transfers more weight to the tractor. If your road work would benefit from more weight on the tractor, then yes. Bear in mind that the draft control is not instantaneous; it bleeds hydraulic fluid through a small opening. I find that switch from uphill to down hill mowing, I often need to help it out a little with a manual height adjustment.

The 4N1 in reverse, with the clam shell open does a great job of cutting and leveling. Practice makes perfect on the correct angle and curl that you want to achieve the desired results. Go slowly at first and you will get there. For the smoothest road repairs, you probably want to be dragging your blade.

Your control lever for height and curl has a 4th position that indents, or locks, beyond "lift up" that couples the hydraulic lines on the lift arms together so that fluid can move freely between the upper and lower portions. The mower or blade becomes deadweight down pressure at that point. The upside is that for things like grading, the lift arms rise and fall much faster than the draft control could move them, but the downside is that the tractor is that much lighter. Since in float the hydraulic lines to the arms are locked together, draft control gets locked out and probably chatters itself to death trying to compensate for pressure in a small truncated hydraulic line.

All the best,

Peter

The PT manual describes in great and intricate detail how to calibrate, activate and use draft control... including that it should not be used in float.

This brings up several questions:

1.) Can anyone provide real world experience with calibrating, activating and using draft control? --- seems real important for brush cutting

2.) Would my road repairs be less wavvy if I had used the float function?

3.) how does one engage the float function