Jack Yuan
Platinum Member
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- Apr 14, 2013
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- Changzhou, JiangSu, China
- Tractor
- Jinma 504, Jinma 904, DF1604, YTO X1804
You can produce a smaller pulley on the rotor shaft, then you will have bigger ratio.
Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers
- Thread starter TNhobbyfarmer
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You can produce a smaller pulley on the rotor shaft, then you will have bigger ratio.
Jack Yuan
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2013
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- 507
- Location
- Changzhou, JiangSu, China
- Tractor
- Jinma 504, Jinma 904, DF1604, YTO X1804
very interesting idea.:thumbsup:
Catoosa
Bronze Member
BTW: If you have a John Deere flail mower that has a roller with hex ends. You can get bearings that will fit the hex from your local bearing supply house for about 1/3 the price you will pay for bearings from JD. Just take one of your existing bearings with you. My local guy had to order the bearings but the price was worth the wait.
leonz
Super Member
Hello Mister Yuan,
Reducing the flail mower rotor pulley shaft diameter to increase the speed ratio is a double edged sword so to speak for a number of reasons.
The blade tip speed will be increased and thusly increase the chance of impacting the forward knifes edge and damaging depending on the knife station hanger separation distance as relates strictly to the individual flail mower rotor diameter i.e. 2 row, 3 row or the 4 row knife station flail mower rotor.
The scoop knife/duckfoot-hate that/Cast Hammer flail knife would also be affected by this due to the increased tip speed in some cases affecting the knife cutting efficiency where it would simply bounce off the material.
2. plugging and wrapping of the flail mower rotor with heavy brush.
3. reduced bearing life on the drive pulley open flange bearing (B10 life).
a. reduced bearing life on driven pulley open flange bearing(B10 life).
b. reduced bearing life on the flail mower rotor bearings(B10 life).
4. increased belt wear/reduced V belt life.
There are other reasons but the above reasons are more than adequate to explain why one should not attempt to change the pulleys to change the speed ratio on the flail mower rotor.
The use of a larger flail mower rotor diameter pulley would allow the end user to make use of shorter side slicer lengths with tool less blade installation and removal and as a result save a lot of money on knife replacement if needed.
The added benefit of the above would allow the flail mower rotor to match the speed of the driven pulleys diameter to obtain the same high quality of cut.
The smaller flail mower rotor diameter using a steel tube is a compromise with the blade tip speed with the use of the longer knife being used to equal the combined radius of the larger pulley diameter and the shorter knife length.
Me I like not needing tools to change knives to sharpen them or install the thatching knives on my towed flail mower.
Steave
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The reason I thought about the increased ratio wasn't to speed up the rotor as it cuts great now. The reason was to decrease the rpm of the mule engine. I know I would lose a bit of torque but I don't see that being a problem. If my mule were a new diesel I wouldn't even have thought about it but its an older gas burner and every rpm less it turns is a good thing.
Thanks for the info.
Ozarks Landowner
Bronze Member
I agree that a static balance is not the best but that's all I can do unless I want to ship it off and it would just not be very economical to do that when I can get it to run pretty dang good by just the static balance I done.
This Rotor has two pieces of flat bar welded the entire length for the hangers to fit between and bolt up. Four runs of two if that makes since. Everything is aligned properly as far as bolting locations. I done the balance with no attachments on the rotor. Every attachment was weighed on a digital scale to weigh exactly the same.
I am thinking about adding some balancing beads but I'm just not sure if they would spread out in the horizontal shaft.
JD40MO77
Bronze Member
Last week I had to replace one of the hex shaft roller bearings on one of my 2 JD 25A flail mowers and in the process of finding a replacement I ran across this website.
JohnDeere AE293 9 Bearing : MIBearings LLC
I went to my local New Holland dealer after trying a couple of local ag supply stores and purchase the New Holland Part #80121602.
This bearing worked although it was only the bearing and did not include the housing. It was $54 versus the $103 at John Deere not to mention the closest dealer with one in inventory was 100 miles away and it was going to take 3 days if I let them ship it to the local store.
The above website also shows other cross reference #s.
JD40MO77
Bronze Member
Catoosa can you share the part number and brand bearing you used?
I just repaced one and probably will need another next summer if not sooner.
I did rotor bearings on one mower last summer and got those from the local Napa parts store.
I just repaced one and probably will need another next summer if not sooner.
I did rotor bearings on one mower last summer and got those from the local Napa parts store.
80sDweeb
Bronze Member
I've been bush-hogging with my Alamo SHD74 flail on my Massey Ferguson 135 diesel vineyard model. Been having a great time clearing out terrain that you really couldn't walk through without a machete. Having some trouble with some heavier brush. A rotary cutter would be better for some of it, but this is working well enough overall. Amazing how the tallest 12-15 foot tall brush is mulched into nothing. Biggest problems I've had are I hit some old wire fencing - took me an hour to cut it out of the mower with bolt cutters - and hitting rocks and pieces of concrete and cinder block. They get caught under the mower and sometimes I'm too busy dealing with tricky and dangerous terrain to get to the pto lever quickly. HORRIBLE noise! I checked when I was done today and found about 6 knives were missing after that fun time. I've also been losing cotter pins on the blade holders, and I'm wondering if I should go with the bolts with nyloc nuts instead. I see both in the Flailmaster catalog, and it looks like they should work just fine. Any thoughts on that?
I also have a YouTube video of me cutting with it. I have to warn you that my camera work is pretty poor. I find when I was thinking about mowing, I'd point the camera more or less where I look, which is mostly down at the tractor, to keep my eye on the ground under the front wheels as much as possible. This doesn't make for great cinematography! Also, I thought I had some wood stuck in the mower, but a cotter pin had come out and the pair of knives were hitting the mower housing - wow, was that LOUD. Also, when I was worried more about cutting than filming, the camera would drift, and sometimes my finger would get in front of the lens. Oh well. The first 10 minutes or so are really what I wanted people to see anyway. REALLY tall brush, and the mower just tears it up, so amazing!
Clearing brush and weeds with the Massey Ferguson 135 diesel - YouTube
I also have a YouTube video of me cutting with it. I have to warn you that my camera work is pretty poor. I find when I was thinking about mowing, I'd point the camera more or less where I look, which is mostly down at the tractor, to keep my eye on the ground under the front wheels as much as possible. This doesn't make for great cinematography! Also, I thought I had some wood stuck in the mower, but a cotter pin had come out and the pair of knives were hitting the mower housing - wow, was that LOUD. Also, when I was worried more about cutting than filming, the camera would drift, and sometimes my finger would get in front of the lens. Oh well. The first 10 minutes or so are really what I wanted people to see anyway. REALLY tall brush, and the mower just tears it up, so amazing!
Clearing brush and weeds with the Massey Ferguson 135 diesel - YouTube
