Had it 2 months considering trading

[jwstewar]

I have a NH TC24D and I love the tractor and loader, but its the mower I'm not in love with. I have the 60" 914A MMM rear-discharge or should I say 914A MMM lack-of-rear-discharge. If everything is completely dry and not very tall it does a great job and I love the looks of the yard, but yesterday I mowed after being gone for a week so in reality it had been 2 weeks since I mowed. I tried mowing at my normal height and it kept bogging down, pulled the deck up some and it was still bogging. End up either having to stop raise the deck up and push the clutch in. Leaves huge piles of grass blob. Not clippings because they are too mutilated to still be considered clippings. It would even keep stalling the tractor. This can't be good on the engine.

Does anybody have the 60" side discharge? Does it bog or windrow? I hate to give up the ability to mow with either side, but these huge clumps of good look terrible in the yard.

Anybody have any idea how much I'd lose on the deal?

 

[Mrwurm]

Jim, have you checked the mower deck for the proper level. Most mower decks are setup to to tip forward such that the blades are 1/4 in closer to the ground in the front. I had lots of trouble discharging clippings until I adjusted my deck for the proper tip and now it works great. I use my 60in finish mower as a brush hog on occasion. I can cut down 3ft grasses and weeds and I never clog. Mine is side discharge, I'm not sure how much difference that really makes.

 

[JohnMiller3]

Hi Jim,

I agree... talk to the dealer and ask him the best way the deck should be adjusted... with the front on the deck say 1" lower than the rear... it takes less horsepower to cut... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

It's actually not that much different using a push mower... go away a few weeks, come back and the grass is sky high and sometimes a struggle to cut on "one pass"... and you have to realize the lower hp you are using on your TC24 tractor as well...

 

[thcri]

From what my dealer told me when I was buying he told me the rear discharge did have some troubles with discharge. Check the items the other guys posted here and see if that helps. You may have to mow twice by only taking off a 1/2" at a time. Your mower does a nicer job than the side discharge does as far as mowing but not as nice as the side discharge to disposing of the grass.

murph

 

[Inspector507]

Jim,
Of course you know I'm having the same issue. I think a lot of it has to do with the RD deck being more of a mulching mower than the SD. I ended up getting the RFM out to mow on Saturday, mine was taking too long at the highest setting, and kept clogging up. Personally, I think it is a design flaw keeping the clippings in "too long" for the mulching action. But I'm not against trying a few adjustments to see if it makes any difference.
With mine, the grass has to be perfectly dry, no rain for a week, late afternoon with the sun drying the dew all day, or it clogs up fast.
With the RFM, it left alot of grass piled up behind it, but never bogged the engine RPM even in High range.
When I ordered the 914RD, the salesman said....."Oh you want the mulching deck". That what leads me to believe this is more of an issue than with the SD.

 

[jwstewar]

Here are some pictures I took today of the problem I'm having.

This first pictures is looking at me leach bed area.

 

[jwstewar]

Here is a closer shot of my mess.

 

[jwstewar]

This is right in front of the house looking toward the driveway.

 

[jwstewar]

Here is some grass that I hadn't mowed yet (getting dark and ran out of fuel). As you can tell it really wasn't all that high.

 

[jwstewar]

Here is a shot looking across the yard to the ditch that runs through our property.

 

[jwstewar]

Another shot looking across the yard.

 

[jwstewar]

Another shot looking back across the leach bed.

 

[Inspector507]

Deja vu............I've got the same "deposits" everywhere I tried to mow with mine. When it fills up underneath, the RPM goes from 2600 to about 17-1800 in a matter of seconds. Stop, raise the deck and push in the clutch. Clears it right out, along with leaving the same mess you've pictured.

 

[Mrwurm]

As I mentioned in my earlier post, try tipping your deck forward if possible and test that out. Also, my mower deck for my Gravely can accept a few different blade designs from the same manufacturer. What I am suggesting is that you may be able to put the same blades on your deck that are made for the side discharge model. The side discharge blades may have less 'lift' or different aerodynamics that will not keep the clippings suspended for so long. I did this very thing with a Honda mulching mower a few years ago. The mower clogged up all the time but left very fine clippings when it did manage to work. I switched to a regular blade made for their 'non-mulching' model. The resultant clippings were larger, but it did'nt clog up and leave large clumps. Whatever the size of the clippings, I just want them evenly dispersed.

 

[spencer200]

We use a side discharge 914A at our dealership at least once a week to mow the grass I have never seen any type of mess out of ours like you are having. I suspect some type of problem or not properly set up by your dealer. We sell many of these mowers to our customers and have not ever had a complaint about the way they are cutting or leaving clippings. So I am kind of baffled about your problem. I also did a search on the New Holland service data base for a listing on your problem I did not find any mention of this. The one thing that might help out your problem is that New Holland now offers gator mulching blades the 60" part number is 8772891 and the 72" part number is 8772890 I would try these out before you did anything to drastic plus have your dealer check his set up on the mower deck.

 

[Soundguy]

Have you tried any kind of under-deck preperations? At tractor supply, they make a spray to be applied to the undersides of mower decks.. sopposed to help with grass accumulation. Might be some sort of silicone prep.. not sure.

Soundguy

 

[jwstewar]

I haven't tried any of those. I was watching to see the results of some of the testing here and it seems like most of the the guys were saying that it had worn off after 2 or 3 mowings. I did do some more mowing last night and remowed the front yard to "repair" the damage. While I was doing the 50 hours maitenance yesterday I did readjust the deck a little bit to tilt the back up a little bit. Seemed to help some, but as soon as the dew started settling in it started doing it again. Ended up then and just went back and put the FEL back on and put it away.

BTW, how do you guys loosen the nuts on the fuel sediment bowl? With the FEL frame in the way, it is real tough to get anything on that nut. When I put it back on I only tightened up finger tight and just nudged it with a pair of channel locks. Used it for about 4 or 5 hours after the "tune up" w/o incident errrr....no leaks I should say.

 

[Inspector507]

Jim,
Guess what.....?? You mentioned you lost a pin on the front of your deck?? I did too today.... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I was able to cut a piece of 5/8" round stock and use some pins and keep going though.

Now back to our deck problem. I didn't re-adjust any of the arms yet, but I did set my rear wheels so that they are lower than the front ones today. Went out purposely this morning while the grass was still wet with dew. The rear wheels did make some noticeable marks in the lawn. But I was able to cut the whole front of my yard with the deck only loading up twice.
So......I think, setting the deck ½"-1" higher in the rear is going to help us.
All is not lost my friend....... DON'T trade that pretty <font color="blue"> BLUE </font> tractor in yet /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
We'll get this worked out soon.

Jerry

 

[thcri]

Called my New Holland Parts girl today and she said you can now buy Hi-Lift Blades for the 914A MMM and you can get Gator Blades. The Gator Blades are about $10.00 each less than the Hi-lift ones. I did go to the Gator home page and they do talk about lift on their standard Mulching Blade. I really think I might give them a try.

The girl there asked me why I wanted Hi-lift blades and I explained to her that I was having problems with my front wheels packing down the grass and not being lifted back up when the mower went over it. She told me that they never have problems with that unless the front of the mower is two much lower in the front than in the back. She said New Holland does want the front to be somewhat lower in front but not much and if you go to far then you will get the problem I am having. (Gee, why didn't the mechanic tell me that?) I told her that I have not done anything with the adjustment since I got the tractor and she asked me my front tires are pumped all the way up. (I guess I remember TBNer's talking about lowering tire pressure to do less damage on the grass so I did). So tonight I pumped my fronts back up and guess what, yep problem not so much there, I can tell the difference. So I decided to look further and on concrete I notice that my front wheels hit the concrete about a 1/2 an inch before my back wheels do when lowering the deck. Looking at the manual it says they should be even??? But to do a total readjustment looks like a lot of work according to the book? Can I not just readjust the front arms to raise the front of the deck some? Has anyone did this or have experience or must I totally take everything apart and start over like the book says. I know that when the dealer put this together he had a lot of problems getting the deck the way it is suppose to be.


Murph

 

[jwstewar]

Oh, wasn't planning on trading the tractor. Just the mower deck, but I haven't given up the fight just yet. With what you and I have tried and what Murph has tried I still have hope. Hadn't contact the dealer yet so I'm still in the experimental stage.

Back to the pin issue, since I was there at your house I've lost 2 more of the hair pins off the same 3/4" deck pin. Fortunately I didn't lose the deck pin the last 2 times, but almost did last night. Was close to falling out. I turned it around and put the hairpin to the outside this time. Gotta go buy some more hairpins though I've used up my stock.