Zero turn maintenance

[ChuckinNH]

I stopped at a dealers today to look at garden tractors with mid mounted mowers. Before I left the dealer had talked me into trying out a Z turn which I had never operated before. It actually went pretty well, and rode well (Ferris 1500) but I wonder how you maintain the mower blades, deck, etc. ?

 

[JGM]

Zero turns aren't much different than other mowers. I have a Scag and love it. I just grease the fittings and sharpen the blades. The blades can be a bit tough to remove, but I use a ATV lift on the front end.

it works fine.

 

[om21braz]

Not really any different from a hydro lawn tractor w/ mowing deck, just a few more grease fittings on most ztr mowers.

 

[ChuckinNH]

I was wondering about the best way to get under the deck to remove blades, clean, sharpen, etc. I do have a tractor with a loader if I can lift the front, and block it.

 

[JGM]

I was wondering about the best way to get under the deck to remove blades, clean, sharpen, etc. I do have a tractor with a loader if I can lift the front, and block it.

you could do what I do with a ATV lift, or use a Johnson Bar or just a scissors jack or some other type of hydraulic floor jack.

they would all work in some fashion.

 

[om21braz]

Chuck,
Seeing as you already have one Kubota, note that many of the Kubota zero-turn mowers have the integral jack on the front end. It makes mowing deck maintenance much easier. The decks on these are not too difficult to remove anyway (maybe hard to get back the first time or two), but their weight is tough to handle by yourself.

 

[rswyan]

Having reached that certain age where ease and convenience has increasingly become a more important factor in many things, if I were going to buy another mower, I wouldn't consider anything less than a mower which has a deck lift on it, that can raise/tilt the deck up 90 degrees, for easy access to the blades.

The Kubota F-series front mowers are the only ones that come to mind right offhand that have this - although I'd bet there are others (I haven't been lookin')

Even if I had to go with used iron (which I really prefer not to do), I think that's the route I'd be looking to go ...

Generally I find that, if things are easy to do, my motivation to do them seems, for some unknown reason, to be significantly higher .... :laughing:

 

[6thgpSF]

grasshopper makes an electric lift for their front mount mowers.the guy at the kubota dealer showed me how the midmount lift on the Kubotas worked,pretty neat.I'm pretty sure there are other makes with these features. russ

 

[Will_C]

I use my FEL to lift the front of my ZTR for service.

Will