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Having trouble with mower leaving strips. Person told me that you are supposed to put the blades in a straight line. Is this true, or does blade position not matter? Blades are freshly sharpened on a 54" ztr.
Thanks
Thanks
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What type of grass are you cutting? That makes all the difference! -
you say strips, are they large or just a few strands left? Are your blades in realitively good condition, no rounded ends? Could you have a bent housing? Did you get new blades that might be shorter than they are supposed to be (mis-sized?)
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Jim, how can a bent housing make a mower leave strips. I'm wondering because we banged a deck pretty hard the other day on a brand new walkbehind, and ever since I've noticed it leaving uncut strips of grass, even with new blades.Comment
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As I seem to have many problems with housings, I had strips left after I had bent/broke a housing, as it continued to wear I eventually had blades hitting each other. It was caused as a result of the housing and spindle being at an angle. The spindle was okay, however the crack and related stress of the blades turning caused a pitch which allowed the blade to be out of it's normal rotation.Comment
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Makes sense. One of the guys lost control coming down a hill on a velke last week and banged into a brick wall pretty hard. At first it seemed that the only problem was that the pins used to raise and lower the deck couldn't come all the way out of the holes making it very difficult to change the height. We fixed this problem with a rubber mallet, but now it appears there may be more to the problem. Looks like we'll be making a trip to the dealer Monday. BTW it's a 2004 Gravely 48" Hydro.Comment
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I really believe I could tear up a crowbar in a sandbox.
did you see my other post?
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Yeah, I here ya. I don't know if you have employees or not, but take the amount of stuff you tear up and multiply it by 10 and that's how much crap employees will destroy.
If one of the spindles or housings is bent enough to cause uneven cutting do you think I will be able to see it, or will the dealer have to look at it. Believe it or not, after three seasons in business this is the first problem of this nature that I've had. Usually it's just a bent blade from running over something.Comment
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Look on both sides of the deck at the housing. Look for a crack, they are easily hidden due to accumulated grass grime and what ever under your deck. It is also posible to have bent the deck itself, look for cracked or flaking paint or cracked welds. I am fortunate to only have one employee, he is very careful and the biggest problem we have is hanging up the ZTR occasionally. I also had a housing fail on my ZTR last fall doing fall clean up with the bagger system. The first housing I trashed was not real apparent, this one came in many pieces. I guess these housings are designed to fail rather than damage the spindle itself, they're not hard at all to change. My dealer even had it in stock, ( I am very Grateful to my Exmark dealer ). Also you might want to check for missing or bent bolts on the spindle/deck.Comment
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Thanks for the help.Comment
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You're quite welcome, Have you ever broken a blade, thats a treat.Comment
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You might check your blades for straightness. New blades don't always match up tip to tip under the mower, so one side cuts lower than the other. Rotate the past each other and see if they line up. Magna-matic balancers are sweet for checking this when you sharpen and balance. A dealer should be able to check and straighten them for you too.Comment
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The blades will not stay in that position unless it's on a gear driven deck of a Walker mower.Originally posted by Green Meadows
Wrong length blades (to short) will leave strips.
What kind of mower you have?Comment
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Check this out
Green Meadows, maybe this will help you solve the problem. I just found it.
Go to http://www.toro.com/
Choose interactive product manuals.
Go to the bottom of that page to Reference Materials and choose Quality of Cut.Comment
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