I meant 3 or 4 times faster for the whole property. My buddies commercial JD ztr does about 10mph mowing and around the house and stuff it's way quicker
I meant 3 or 4 times faster for the whole property. My buddies commercial JD ztr does about 10mph mowing and around the house and stuff it's way quicker
I leveled my pasture some what filling in holes. We run 30-40mph on 4 wheelers and stuff across it. I ran a honda trx 125 with no suspension wide open across it last week.
Mowing with a tractor is relaxing and fun. Mowing with a zero turn is work, and if you hit dust, it can be very uncomfortable. An hour on my zero turn is probably equal in wear and tear on my body to 4 hours on my tractor. 2 hours on the zero turn, and that's about all I'm going to do that day.
Bump that up to a more appropriately sized 15' or so batwing and i bet the ZTR wont keep up.
Finish mowers dont take as much HP as people often think....as long as you are mowing regularly like a lawn.
ZTR's are set to mow at FAST ground speeds and that in combination with hydros that arent exactly efficient.....you see ~5hp/foot pretty common for commercial ZTR's.
But its unlikely you are gonna try to mow at 10MPH with a tractor and RFM. More like half that....which in theory cuts the HP requirement in half as well.
IT wasnt all that long ago that your typical sit-down rider with a 4' deck only had 12-13 HP engines.
To run a 8' RFM....really, about 25-30hp is all you need at the PTO. And since you are already looking at older iron...it is doubtful that with a 7-8' cutter, it is gonna be too heavy to lift or have a light front end.
The old ford 800-801 series, 2000/3000 series....massey 135 or 230-235, etc would be a good start