BAGTIC
Silver Member
It\'s a boy! (Good) but he has a screw loose. (Bad)
Got my PT425 late Friday afternoon. My wife insisted on being the first to initiate it so she took a couple of passes around the front yard and parked it as it was getting dark.
Next day I mowed the yard. It took 3.6 hours and another 20 minutes to put away all the accessories and clean up the pallets, etc. Only problem was that the mower stalled twice when it got wrapped up with long grass straw. The yard had not been mowed since we moved in on 4 April (and who knows how long before that) so some of the grass was tall (24-36 inches). Thanks goodness it wasn't very dense most places. The soil is rocky and it has been unusually dry and cool so far this spring. My wife could tell I was pleased when she drove in from work. She said it was all over my face.
Day two. I decided to rotortill the garden site. The soil is very hard dry clay with a generous assortment of rocks, up to potato size. Trying to till to max depth in one pass proved futile so I decided to set tiller just deep enough to dig up the old grass for the first pass. Having used a walking type tiller before, I had sprayed the grass with hebicide three times in three weeks to kill it and its roots (only half-way successful. What are they NOT putting in herbicide nowadays?). I mowed it first to prevent the tines from balling up with long stalks.
It didn't make any difference. The tiller rotor kept stalling, stopped and wouldn't turn even when I lifted it. Eight times in 1.5 hours. I shut down the tractor and checked to see that it was not tangled. It was not. What I found was that simply turning the rotor by hand a couple of inches and restarting the tractor fixed it, until next time. Ocassionally the rotor would not turn forward but turning it backard 1-2 inches unlocked it and then it turned fine. Any ideas what the problem is. It reminds me of a car that won't start because of a broken tooth on the starter/flywheel. If one turns it by hand until the good teeth catch again they will start right up. I don't have any idea how these hydraulic motors work. Could it be something similar?
Also, when I turned the rotor/tines by hand I noticed that ALMOST EVERY bolt was so loose (1/2 to 2 turns) that it needed two wrenches to tighten them, one for the bolt, one for the nut. Is this typical of PT quality control?
Got my PT425 late Friday afternoon. My wife insisted on being the first to initiate it so she took a couple of passes around the front yard and parked it as it was getting dark.
Next day I mowed the yard. It took 3.6 hours and another 20 minutes to put away all the accessories and clean up the pallets, etc. Only problem was that the mower stalled twice when it got wrapped up with long grass straw. The yard had not been mowed since we moved in on 4 April (and who knows how long before that) so some of the grass was tall (24-36 inches). Thanks goodness it wasn't very dense most places. The soil is rocky and it has been unusually dry and cool so far this spring. My wife could tell I was pleased when she drove in from work. She said it was all over my face.
Day two. I decided to rotortill the garden site. The soil is very hard dry clay with a generous assortment of rocks, up to potato size. Trying to till to max depth in one pass proved futile so I decided to set tiller just deep enough to dig up the old grass for the first pass. Having used a walking type tiller before, I had sprayed the grass with hebicide three times in three weeks to kill it and its roots (only half-way successful. What are they NOT putting in herbicide nowadays?). I mowed it first to prevent the tines from balling up with long stalks.
It didn't make any difference. The tiller rotor kept stalling, stopped and wouldn't turn even when I lifted it. Eight times in 1.5 hours. I shut down the tractor and checked to see that it was not tangled. It was not. What I found was that simply turning the rotor by hand a couple of inches and restarting the tractor fixed it, until next time. Ocassionally the rotor would not turn forward but turning it backard 1-2 inches unlocked it and then it turned fine. Any ideas what the problem is. It reminds me of a car that won't start because of a broken tooth on the starter/flywheel. If one turns it by hand until the good teeth catch again they will start right up. I don't have any idea how these hydraulic motors work. Could it be something similar?
Also, when I turned the rotor/tines by hand I noticed that ALMOST EVERY bolt was so loose (1/2 to 2 turns) that it needed two wrenches to tighten them, one for the bolt, one for the nut. Is this typical of PT quality control?
