Mowing Rotary cutter swing arc

[4570Man]

Why get rid of the turnbuckles? They allow you to set just the amount of slack you want, whether that's a very little or a lot. I like my as tight as I can keep them without binding because my entire place is fairly steep hills, and I don't what the mower swinging around when I turn to a different side slope (the photo in my avatar is one of the most level spots on our place).

Stabilizer bars are far superior. My Grand L came standard with stabilizer bars, but I still have to suffer through the turnbuckles on other pieces of equipment. You really don't release what you are missing until you get a set.

 

[dieselcrawler]

I also ditched my turn buckles for stabilizer bars. I can't have the momentum of a swinging brush hog throwing my poor little tractor around on my steep hills. Within the first 25 hours of use, I had lost turnbuckle parts in a very inconvenient place, which made getting off the hill and back to the barn dangerous.

I bought off-the-shelf bars at the local farm store, and cut them in the middle, overlapping them at the right length, and welded them back together. Still keep the turnbuckle setup handy for the odd impliment that doesn't fit the standard 27" wide lower link spacing.




The lower link end of the turnbuckle system is still attached and visible in the picture. It only takes a few minutes to put the turnbuckles back on when I need them.

 

[TripleR]

This explains the difference: Three Point Options - YouTube

 

[TerryR]

I can see we have a lot of fans for stabilizer bars, but I still can't see why. All the photos I find show telescoping bars with pins every inch or so. How can you use a setup that leaves that much slack? I set mine up snug then back off a turn or so so they won't bind. If I left that much slack my rotary mower would be flopping all over the place every time I make a turn that changes the side slope.

I can see some convenience if the turnbuckles on your tractor has jamb nuts that require a wrench like some I see in photos. But well designed ones use a spring clip to keep the turnbuckle from turning after it's set. Simple and easy.

I see several users supporting Hodge's design. Is he still in business? I see his website is down and the domain is for sale. I can't find an image of it on the Wayback Machine later than 2013.

 

[TripleR]

After 60+ years of driving tractors from our old 1955 Ford 600 through our M8540, my list of things I thought I wouldn't like or thought I'd never want is pretty darn long. It's pretty hard to know or understand until you use them. Right now we have eleven tractors the best I remember with turn buckles, solid and adjustable stabilizer bars and my preference is adjustable ones. I never have anything adjusted so tight as to prevent any lateral movement. Growing up with the old solid bars, it was pretty common to have to take a solid bar off, brace it and run over it to get it straightened out. On some tasks, we just took them off to allow proper tracking with ground engaging equipment.

Hodge has shut his site down, but he is an OTT member, so you can pm him, I've lost his email, great guy with which to deal, I bought two sets. You can sometimes get parts to cobble a set together or get OEM, but if you can't contact him.

 

[TerryR]

I started driving McCormick H's and M's and IH TD-40's over 60 years ago, but of course stabilizer bars were never an issue with them. My JD 870 is the first tractor I've run with a 3-point hitch. I've used it for next to 20 years using the factory turnbuckles with no issues, so can't see a reason to change now I'm afraid.

 

[TripleR]

Nothing wrong with the old "if it ain't broke don't fix it"; for me it was not a necessity, but sure made my life easier.

For those interested: Kubota tractor stabilizers Kubota www.stabilworks.com - YouTube