July 3 - Mowing Madness - 150 hours
OK first up, I'm happy to report that the "pull up on the pedal to go backwards" trick does work. It's not great, but at least the tractor isn't disabled if a pedal goes down. My replacement arrived (along with the autothrottle!) but I haven't had a chance to put it in yet. A piece of bailing twine tied to the pedal is the temporary fix. One advantage to this I've found is that I can kneel on the seat, look over the back, and pull on the string - lining up the backhoe is much easier when I can see the subframe!
Weather has been crazy this year. If it's not raining, it's 90+. I think we had three days in a row of 100+. High was 105. This has wreaked havoc on my mowing plans, so I've been sneaking in mows when I can. We do a big party around the 4th of July and I had hoped to have the lawn finally nice for once, but nope.
Mowing in the afternoon a few days ago...
Thought I could sneak some time in between storms, but nope. Mowing in the rain today, not enough to make me stop but enough to get wet and muck everything up.
Need to spend some TLC on my tractor. Right panel looks like crap, awful discoloration, noticed a crack near the axle, bailing twine on the pedal and holding the side chute up... Wet grass everywhere. It's a hot mess.
Yay, more work to do.
That's a lot of buildup...
Last time I sharpened the blades I did the height check when balancing, and found at least one blade bent by a good 1/4". Makes sense why the cut is so poor. Going to look at the JD mulch kit, or maybe just start with some Gator blades (Oregon 396-730 seems to be the correct part number) and see how it does. If I leave the side deflector down, I end up with huge clumps of grass in rows. If I angle the deflector up, it spreads out more evenly, but then there's dead grass everywhere. Can't win.
No pictures since I wanted to get the job done, but I mowed that big paddock (~2.5 acres) until 10:30 PM last night, it was finally cool enough to be outside.
It's funny, when I got the tractor I said "nah, I don't need a cab or canopy, I'll never use it during winter or the rain". Turns out I do! "nah, I don't need rear work lights, I won't use it at night". Turns out I do! The LED lights and those side work lights have been incredibly useful. Might go with the Artillian ROPS-mounted lights for rear work lights.
Been getting a lot done with the backhoe too, it's a handy landscaping tool.
Digging some steps down to the river:
Moving all those rocks I dug up to be more scenic along the river's edge.
The hydraulic thumb makes it so much more useful than "just digging". It's great being able to grab rocks and position them, reach down into the water and grab logs and branches, hold logs off the group for chain sawing. The extra GPM does more than make it faster too - being able to grab with the thumb, curl, manipulate the dipper, and swing the boom all at the same time means you can put all sorts of varying force on tree roots and other stuck things instead of only applying force in a single direction at a time. (OK so it does make the job faster.) I can move rocks that are too big to lift, by grabbing with the thumb, applying maximum boom and dipper lift, and push/pull/swing to move the rock around. I've got the itch for the Hydros+ cylinder upgrades...
OK first up, I'm happy to report that the "pull up on the pedal to go backwards" trick does work. It's not great, but at least the tractor isn't disabled if a pedal goes down. My replacement arrived (along with the autothrottle!) but I haven't had a chance to put it in yet. A piece of bailing twine tied to the pedal is the temporary fix. One advantage to this I've found is that I can kneel on the seat, look over the back, and pull on the string - lining up the backhoe is much easier when I can see the subframe!
Weather has been crazy this year. If it's not raining, it's 90+. I think we had three days in a row of 100+. High was 105. This has wreaked havoc on my mowing plans, so I've been sneaking in mows when I can. We do a big party around the 4th of July and I had hoped to have the lawn finally nice for once, but nope.
Mowing in the afternoon a few days ago...
Thought I could sneak some time in between storms, but nope. Mowing in the rain today, not enough to make me stop but enough to get wet and muck everything up.
Need to spend some TLC on my tractor. Right panel looks like crap, awful discoloration, noticed a crack near the axle, bailing twine on the pedal and holding the side chute up... Wet grass everywhere. It's a hot mess.
Yay, more work to do.
That's a lot of buildup...
Last time I sharpened the blades I did the height check when balancing, and found at least one blade bent by a good 1/4". Makes sense why the cut is so poor. Going to look at the JD mulch kit, or maybe just start with some Gator blades (Oregon 396-730 seems to be the correct part number) and see how it does. If I leave the side deflector down, I end up with huge clumps of grass in rows. If I angle the deflector up, it spreads out more evenly, but then there's dead grass everywhere. Can't win.
No pictures since I wanted to get the job done, but I mowed that big paddock (~2.5 acres) until 10:30 PM last night, it was finally cool enough to be outside.
It's funny, when I got the tractor I said "nah, I don't need a cab or canopy, I'll never use it during winter or the rain". Turns out I do! "nah, I don't need rear work lights, I won't use it at night". Turns out I do! The LED lights and those side work lights have been incredibly useful. Might go with the Artillian ROPS-mounted lights for rear work lights.
Been getting a lot done with the backhoe too, it's a handy landscaping tool.
Digging some steps down to the river:
Moving all those rocks I dug up to be more scenic along the river's edge.
The hydraulic thumb makes it so much more useful than "just digging". It's great being able to grab rocks and position them, reach down into the water and grab logs and branches, hold logs off the group for chain sawing. The extra GPM does more than make it faster too - being able to grab with the thumb, curl, manipulate the dipper, and swing the boom all at the same time means you can put all sorts of varying force on tree roots and other stuck things instead of only applying force in a single direction at a time. (OK so it does make the job faster.) I can move rocks that are too big to lift, by grabbing with the thumb, applying maximum boom and dipper lift, and push/pull/swing to move the rock around. I've got the itch for the Hydros+ cylinder upgrades...
