F215 Gearing for mowing

[clemsonfor]

.. or described another way, the lowest gear in High Range is *lower* than the top gear in Low Range.

So if you really need to go up through the gears in sequence, then the next gear after Low 3rd is Hi 1st, followed by Low 4th.

No I don't know why they did it that way. Maybe they made 4th in each range far higher than 3rd, so the top gear would be a good high speed road gear. I can't think of any other reason to do it that way.

Thats a good way to put it. Thanks.

I think it was ernie that explained the point of it so that your in the low gear set you can have a "travel" gear so that you can get from point A to B with out haveing to stop put it in high and then back in Low. This would be for in Japan where they may only go 15 feet between fields or on a turn around or say from a shed right next to a field. Its not the case for us here in the US as we have more land usually. Plus i almost never do anything in Low anyway, but if i moved in Low 3 i would not use Low 4 to get to my areas from my farm house. Some of them are 150 yards away and some 300 yards, so if that was the case i would put it in high, i would save a few mins over that low speed 4!!

 

[nevis]

Interestingly I also have a 1961 Fordson Dexta which has 3 gears and 2 ranges. 4th gear is Low 3 and 3rd gear is High 1.
I find it strange and can't really think why they did it that way. When I mow I want to be in 3rd gear but high reverse is too fast so I keep having to change ranges every time I want to back up.
I've also checked the gearing on my F215 compared to the info in this thread on the YM tractors. It would seem that ranges 1 & 2 are lower ratio and therefore there is no gear to give a ground speed of about 3.3 to 3.5mph @ PTO revs which is the speed I mow at.

 

[clemsonfor]

i did not pay close enough attention to the chart for your tractor (just the ym2000) and cant remember what you said, but is it possible to just reduce throttle a fe hundred rpms in the higher gear?

 

[nevis]

Yes that's what I do. I run the PTO in 2nd gear and the engine at about 1900 rpm which gives roughly 540 PTO rpm and 3.6mph groundspeed.
With a 5ft finish mower the engine doesn't labour but I'm always mindful of the advice that these tractors were designed to run at full PTO speed (2409 rpm for the F215) all day and that this is best for the engine.