Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[leonz]

Look for a gates rubber company reseller like Kaman Industrial or check their dealer network list another option is Amazon.

 

[Ricn]

Taking all this advice seriously, and I thank you guys for it! My Son came by taking off the flail and putting on the rotary then hauling the tractor somewhere to mow making some bucks. He does that on occasion for good customers as part of the trac-hoe services for the gentleman farmers around here. When he gets back tomorrow, I asked he put the Land Plane on smoothing out the drive then put the flail back on; good to have boys around here so my old bones are no longer worked to hard. I plan to order a new shaft soon, not sure though where and from whom to get one, I do like quality stuff although another one from Woodmaxx would be ok maybe. My younger Son is the welder/fab guy around here so he can make the hook extension when having time but if finding one on line I could swing the price, might be faster that way.

Ricn

 

[Fallon]

Taking all this advice seriously, and I thank you guys for it! My Son came by taking off the flail and putting on the rotary then hauling the tractor somewhere to mow making some bucks. He does that on occasion for good customers as part of the trac-hoe services for the gentleman farmers around here. When he gets back tomorrow, I asked he put the Land Plane on smoothing out the drive then put the flail back on; good to have boys around here so my old bones are no longer worked to hard. I plan to order a new shaft soon, not sure though where and from whom to get one, I do like quality stuff although another one from Woodmaxx would be ok maybe. My younger Son is the welder/fab guy around here so he can make the hook extension when having time but if finding one on line I could swing the price, might be faster that way.

Ricn

How to Measure and Cut a Tractor PTO Shaft - YouTube shows how to measure & cut a PTO shaft. Only takes 20 minutes or less. You want 1/3 of the shaft to overlap so it wont come apart at max extension. At least several inches before it bottoms out minimum operating length to avoid the aforementioned issues.

No need for a new shaft unless it's to short. Easy & safe to cut em shorter if needed.

 

[ronjhall]

How to Measure and Cut a Tractor PTO Shaft - YouTube shows how to measure & cut a PTO shaft. Only takes 20 minutes or less. You want 1/3 of the shaft to overlap so it wont come apart at max extension. At least several inches before it bottoms out minimum operating length to avoid the aforementioned issues.

No need for a new shaft unless it's to short. Easy & safe to cut em shorter if needed.

That's the video I used. The instruction provided by PTO companies are confusing.
I have cut 3 PTO shafts this year. Using my HF portable band saw to cut. Using it paid for itself. $99.

 

[Ricn]

Good video. I had watched that before keeping it in my bookmarks. My Woodmaxx shaft was cut about 3 or 4 inches shorter following the instructions that came with the shaft and we had little trouble following them. Once installing the quick hitch and moving things back another 4 inches or so, this existing shaft may not be long enough to handle cutting it a second time so another shaft will be needed perhaps.

Ricn

 

[Jerik]

Good video. I had watched that before keeping it in my bookmarks. My Woodmaxx shaft was cut about 3 or 4 inches shorter following the instructions that came with the shaft and we had little trouble following them. Once installing the quick hitch and moving things back another 4 inches or so, this existing shaft may not be long enough to handle cutting it a second time so another shaft will be needed perhaps.

Ricn

Got my Caroni TL1500 in yesterday, and I also used the video to shorten my PTO shaft. Unfortunately my top link wasn't long enough to reach the Caroni, so I had to buy a longer one. That was too wide to fit into the B2650's bracket, so I had to grind down the nubs to get it in.

My current issue is setting the cutting height. What I've read here is to generally have the skids up high and put the roller where you want for cutting height. But the Caroni manual says to keep the skids and roller at the same height, and I can't see how to adjust the roller separate from the skids. There are two bolts on each side of the bracket for the guides and another bolt for the roller. If you remove one fo the two bolts to pivot the bracket down, then it doesn't look like you can get that bold back in. Can someone weigh in on this, please?

 

[leonz]

The skids on the flail mower protect the flail mower rotor by preventing it from nose diving into the ground and damaging the knives and knife hangers.

The skids must be level when mounting them in a lower position


Lower the skids 2 bolt holes and then lower the rear roller- the new drawings for the flail mowers are not the greatest and I will check with Ms. Caroni about this too.


Apparently they have changed the old design for the rear roller mounting to attach it to the skids making the skids a sacrificial wear part also making it a ground engaging wear part of the flail mower.

Bear with me I will be back in a couple of minutes.

I am back,

The ends of the rear rollers ride on the tail portion of the skid when mowing so they have changed the design of the skids making them skis being wider and a bit longer with upturned ends to protect the mower more.


Lower the skids two holes and then position the rear roller lower as you should have plenty of room to work after lowering the skids where you can bolt the rear roller back to the side weldments.


More than pissed off I cannot watch the hockey game, I have to listen to it on the internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The design for the rear roller mounting has changed and the rear roller is "not" part of the skid and also bolted to the side weldment's of the flail mower.

 

[jthibodeau89]

I picked up a used JD 25a flail to mow some over grown pastures on our TN hill farm. Farm was an estate sale and pastures were let go for a few years. Over grown with briars and scrub brush. Just finished going over the mower replacing scoop blades with a full set of side slicers from Flailmaster. My question is how to grease the rotor shaft bearings. I found the zerts for the roller and belt drive shaft, but can't find a way to grease the rotor shaft bearings. I pulled the guards from both ends of the rotor shaft and don't find any zerts or ports. Any suggestions how to grease the rotor bearings on a JD 25A?

 

[Jerik]

My current issue is setting the cutting height. What I've read here is to generally have the skids up high and put the roller where you want for cutting height. But the Caroni manual says to keep the skids and roller at the same height, and I can't see how to adjust the roller separate from the skids. There are two bolts on each side of the bracket for the guides and another bolt for the roller. If you remove one fo the two bolts to pivot the bracket down, then it doesn't look like you can get that bold back in. Can someone weigh in on this, please?

I believe I have figured out how to adjust cutting height on the Caroni TL1500, and hopefully this will benefit future users. My original thought (indicated in my previous post) was that I couldn’t adjust the roller separate from the skids. But it is possible. On the side of the mower are the skids, each attached via 4 bolts, as shown (I had already removed the bolt for the roller from the hole with the arrow).


Each support for the skid has 7 holes, where the two bolts are 2 holes apart. So there are 5 possible positions for the skid (#1 & #3, #2 & #4, etc.), and the mower comes with the skids attached at the highest point (bolts in the lowest holes). The bracket holding the roller uses the bottom skid bolt (roller side) as the pivot point on the roller bracket, which has a series of 5 holes in an arc to set the cutting height.


You can see the four bolts for the skid. So if you want to leave the skids in the highest position (as recommended by a number of people in this forum), then all you have to do is to loosen, but not remove, the pivot point bolt on the skid support. Then remove the roller bolt and reposition it to a higher hole. I put mine in the middle hole, which puts the roller about 3” below the skid.

 

[leonz]

Hello jthibodeau89,

I want to welcome you as the newest resident member of the Flail Mower Nations from the Great State of Tennessee.

DID they sell you enough side slicer pairs to convert it to a finish flail mower? I do not remeber exactly but I think pops had 72 pairs of side slicers-24 on each of the three mounting plates that were also fixed air paddles.

Have you purchased enough side slicer pairs and the required number of knife hanging straps, nuts and bolts and D rings to correctly mount the side slicers? on each of the three mounting rows?

You will have unwanted grass strips if they did not sell you the required number of replacement knife sets, mounting straps, nuts and bolts and hangers.

You have the same flail mower my father owned. have you dug away all the grass and rubber dust from under the V belt guard housing?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

The flail mower rotor bearings should have easily accessed grease fittings on on the exterior flange bearing housings on the exterior of the flail mowers side weldment's(side plates) , they are probably buried with grass dust and not easily visible on the bearing housings.

You will need to dig around the bearing flanges castings to find the grease fittings with a small jewelers screw driver or an O ring pick to find them.

I certainly hope that the previous owner did not install the bearing flanges with the grease fittings on the interior of the flail mower if the bearings were replaced previously.

I also hope that they did not purchase sealed bearings if they replaced them.

Please do not pump more than 4 pumps of grease in each flail mower rotor bearing before your first mowing and only 4 pumps of grease after the first mowing.