Didn't have a lot of leaves fallen, but I wanted to try it, I mowed the lawn on Tuesday ... But 1st I remembered the manual said to grease the bearings every year, they did not say it had to be done prior to use ... But, I decided to open it up and have a look ... No bearings, just the white "bushing" they recommended white lithium grease, but didn't put any on! They did kinda slop some of the blue grease on the gears ... I spread the blue grease out better, and applied the white lithium grease to the axles and bushings ... There are drive gears on both sides.
Then took it out on the lawn, I took a few slow adjustments to get it low enough to do a pretty good job, and had to remember that the instructions said not to make "sharp turns"!
Most of my trees still have quite a lot of leaves, calling for 20° Monday morning, so that should get them off!
It dumped just fine, I should have thought to raise the roller before "transporting" it over to the garden area ...
It wasn't "full" but left a nice pile, I'll rototiller them in when I have more ...
Overall I'm happy with it.
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On a different note ... I went back today and checked to see if Brinly ever answered my questions ... They did, a week later ...
Here they are.
Why would you mix plastic and metal gears?
Kind of a wishy washy answer in my opinion, why not just list the actual country?
Glad I went with the Ohio Steel, even though it's not made in the USA ... But they clearly say it's made in Vietnam.