BX, Mowing With Deck Locked at Top?

[Danner]

Can I run my BX2660 and 54" Fine Cut MMM with the mower locked at the "Top" position?

I sold my rotary mower to buy this, so that's not an option anymore.

I've got about 2 acres of pasture I want to bring down to finishing mower status. Right now it's about knee-high with native Texas hot weather scrub plants. Plan would be to walk the land for any really big stuff, mow with the Top position, landscape rake it real good, and then bring it down to about 3".

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[bp fick]

My first reaction is that fine cut MMMs are expensive and surely their thin blades are not designed for work more akin to brush hogging? Are you concerned? Likely so, since you are asking. Wow. I am too conservative, I guess, but I am very cautious about my RFM and I'd be just about as conservative about an MMM. I'm probably not the right guy to speculate. Maybe someone else will say, "OH Sure, have at it." :laughing::laughing:

 

[638]

Go for it. Won't hurt it a bit

 

[radioman]

I am not familiar with texas grasses, but around here I wouldn't use my MMM to mow a field of tall grasses. mowing in top lock position shouldn't/wouldn't hurt it. Will BX deck handle mowing couple acres one time to get it down to manageable hieght? I am pretty sure it can, but its the hitting unknown objects that will have you kicking yourself.

 

[timswi]

I've done that on high grass...Don't try to mow down saplings that way or you might regret it. Then again, the MMM's are pretty robust.

I'm somewhat careful with mine. At $2500 for the deck I have to be

 

[OrangeRidge]

I've got about 2 acres of pasture I want to bring down to finishing mower status. Right now it's about knee-high with native Texas hot weather scrub plants. .

Get a guy with a slasher tractor
to run over it ...... $100 ? As for mowing in top-lock , the deckdrive
propshaft is very close to the frame/wire-conduits in that setting ; you
can raise it somewhere inbetween , without toplocking it . I've just watched
my neighbour trying to slash-down 1.5 acres of the same , with a Toro
zero kawasaki. He's going to wreck that machine , and is already on a
new engine ! Horses for courses .......

 

[Stargazer]

i ASKED MY SALESMAN this same question and was told it would be fine on my bx-23 60"mmm to use at highest position and it worked fine on about 2 acres. Of course I knew there were no hidden "treasures" in grass and after first pass on did about 1/2 width to keep my ground/blade speed up recut at about 1/2 height few days later when grass had dried out some. Used reg blades now have gator blades on so think it would chop even better but havn't let it get out of control since then.

YMMV Pat

 

[Tom_H]

My tall fescue grows rapidly in the late winter and early spring. It is still rainy season, too wet to cut, and I just have to let the stuff grow tall until the rain stops and everything dries out. My first cut of the year is always at max. lift height. After that, I start bringing it down about 3/4 inch at a time until I hit the 4.0 on the dial, from there I do 3.5, then 3.0 and stay there for the rest of the season. I have a 60" deck with mulch kit on a BX2200. I pull and sharpen the blades myself each spring.

 

[Grandad4]

Been using our BX 54" MMM like that for 6 years now with no apparent ill effects. However, we only have a very limited need for doing so when mowing a small bank where the deck would scalp if it were lowered. Otherwise, it mows everything else at 4"

 

[Danner]

Been using our BX 54" MMM like that for 6 years now with no apparent ill effects. However, we only have a very limited need for doing so when mowing a small bank where the deck would scalp if it were lowered. Otherwise, it mows everything else at 4"

Thanks you, that is what I needed to know.

 

[Grandad4]

I probably should have added that we also have a brush cutter for the other tractor and would obviously use it for any true brush mowing. Danner, I'd have to agree with Orangeridge...can you see if someone can bush hog your place one or two or three times over the course of the growing season? After such mowings, it should then be fine to mow with your BX MMM. Regular mowing after that will eventually let the native grasses take over. Those first runs with the bush hog will break up or at least expose anything you wouldn't want to hit with the BX mower.

That seems to me to be a better approach compared with plunging into the great unknown jungle, alone and unafraid, on your trusty BX with the mower going at full tilt boogie!

 

[Sniggle]

I just did this with my B7800..although it was not locked it was pulled up under the machine. The grass in this 2 acre pasture was close to 3 feet tall, and the B7800 with a 60 inch mower did the trick without breaking a sweat.

In the past I have used my G1900 to mow the pasture, but this time I decided to to finally hook up the deck on the B7800 (I removed the deck when I bought it used 4 years ago and had not until yesterday hooked it up.

As long as you dont 'bushhog ' with it it should work fine.