Mowing Excessive use of JD X570 PTO engage/disengage on hill

[Craigie]

A friend has several hundred feet of hill property (about 12 degree slope) that has a gravel driveway along the top. When mowing uphill once you get to the top of the grass one must disengage the mower each time the top is reached to prevent the mower sucking up gravel. Does this seem like it would prematurely wear out the mechanism from excessive engaging and disengaging each time the hill is crested? Over the 400 ft slope that would mean at least 100 cycles of disengaging and engaging. Seems like mowing parallel to the driveway would be best but I'm told it doesn't feel stable on the hill side going parallel? Yes with a garden tractor you are supposed to mow up and down hills but the constant cycling of the PTO seems like a bad idea? Comments/sugestions??? Thanks.

 

[RjCorazza]

12 degrees isn't much of a slope, but if your friend doesn't feel comfortable on it sideways then he doesn't feel comfortable. I routinely cut 15-20 degree slopes, but it's very equipment and condition specific.
As far as wear and tear on the PTO, I would imagine the clutch will take a beating and wear out much sooner time wise. I would rather replace the clutch than face a possible rollover accident.
Perhaps raising the deck and reducing the throttle at the top of the hill would be a possibility.

 

[Gem99ultra]

I'm on the other side of the fence on the clutch engagement. My Husqvarana GTH gets a major workout with the electric clutch all the time. I simply don't worry about whether or not it'll wear our faster or slower - I flip it on many occasions. So far, about 250 hours it's working as designed.

When mowing on the backside of one of our dams the slope is near 25* for a small section, but mostly 20*. That gets mowed up and down only. Like the OP's friend, I'm not up for a flip-over. The mower's cheaper to fix than me.