Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[TheFarmerInAdell]

View attachment 665599

The hanger on the right end is partially dislodged and needs to be secured before running again. The mounting tab on the rotor appears to be bent already. Be very careful if bending back not to crack the weld.

I prefer the flail mounting method on my JD mowers. I.E. continuous axial rib with formed flat straps that secure D-ring blade hangers. The down side is that the corners of ther blades can hit the rotor, dullling them. But no individual tab welds to break.

The issues I've seen with the formed rib type of mounting is you can tear the bolt right through the metal. I had that (from a previous owner) on my old Ford 917.

 

[jthibodeau89]

I'm not familiar with the JD mounting method -- got any pictures of that?

Pic of my JD390. The rib is 1/2" thick flat stock. My JD25A has a 1/8" thick hat section rib welded to the rotor. I have had the straps that hold the d-ring wear as well as the d- ring itself have a groove worn in it by the blades.

 

[jthibodeau89]

Here's a pic of the JD25A

 

[JWR]

Here's a poc of the JD25AView attachment 666377

Are those bolts holding the straps that hold the D-rings?

 

[jthibodeau89]

Yes. The strap is through bolted with anti-vibe nuts. This pic was taken before a full blade, strap, d-ring and bolt replacement.

 

[JWR]

Interesting. My Alamo's design is per this picture

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Some observations:

1) The Deere design is more of a pain when one breaks/loses knives. I had to replace knives twice in one day last week and there is only one cotter key to pull, no bolts. I'm glad mine is not bolted.
2) However, looking at the Deere design, the triangular knife support 'clevis' probably never comes out of the bolted strap even when the knives are beat all to heck. My Alamo clevis and pin with cotter key DOES sometimes come loose via breaking the cotter key apparently, leaving me with a dangling clevis and missing knives, so the Alamo design MAY come apart more often than the Deere design ??
3) Our knives (Deere and Alamo) look identical even to the oval shaped elongated holes in the knives. If the dimensions are close they are probably interchangeable. The oval shaped holes in the knives are required in the Alamo case to get the clevis ends thru the knives.



So how do you get the Deere triangular clevis's loose from the knives? Are they made as one unit and you have to replace the two knives and the clevis all at the same time OR is the Deere clevis made with a gap (hidden by the strap in your picture) ??

 

[Jchawk]

Whelp, within half an hour of use my AGL165 is trash.
I'm not sure what exactly happened but I think it all occurred because the vertical extension pin broke off and the mower dropped hard into ground while I was driving. The end result is the assembly is torqued where the flails hit the housing and bent the mud scrapers and flails broke - all within a few seconds. I didn't hit anything, so assume just the weight of the mower broke the pin. I'm not even sure how the flails could hit the housing but it is what it is.

Disappointed. Hopefully the company will treat me right. I'm sad I sold my Ford 917 that I've used for years without issue. I'm ticked because I had been waiting to mow after I got better belts (bx39) and a few other things I learned from the research here. This came with bad hydraulic crimps too, so bought 4 new hoses on my own just to get it functional.

I sent an email, since calling they just told me to email them anyways about the hydraulic hoses. I'm going to keep my faith they'll treat me right. I'm kicking myself for buying something I knew was cheap from the get go.

In the picture you can see how it's been torqued about 5 inches between the end (top) and the base. I may be able to twist it back, but what else is damaged? 8 flails are just gone in the middle of the tube.

 

[leonz]

I would ask for a refund of your money as that flail mower is no longer safe to use.

 

[mangler]

Whelp, within half an hour of use my AGL165 is trash.
I'm not sure what exactly happened but I think it all occurred because the vertical extension pin broke off and the mower dropped hard into ground while I was driving. The end result is the assembly is torqued where the flails hit the housing and bent the mud scrapers and flails broke - all within a few seconds. I didn't hit anything, so assume just the weight of the mower broke the pin. I'm not even sure how the flails could hit the housing but it is what it is.

Disappointed. Hopefully the company will treat me right. I'm sad I sold my Ford 917 that I've used for years without issue. I'm ticked because I had been waiting to mow after I got better belts (bx39) and a few other things I learned from the research here. This came with bad hydraulic crimps too, so bought 4 new hoses on my own just to get it functional.

I sent an email, since calling they just told me to email them anyways about the hydraulic hoses. I'm going to keep my faith they'll treat me right. I'm kicking myself for buying something I knew was cheap from the get go.

In the picture you can see how it's been torqued about 5 inches between the end (top) and the base. I may be able to twist it back, but what else is damaged? 8 flails are just gone in the middle of the tube.
View attachment 667173

Man this sucks. Where did you purchase this? I was looking at similar ditch mowers but now I think i will stick with hydraulic side shift. Weight for those heavy duty ditch mowers would have been an issue anyway.

 

[arto98607]

Whelp, within half an hour of use my AGL165 is trash.
I'm not sure what exactly happened but I think it all occurred because the vertical extension pin broke off and the mower dropped hard into ground while I was driving. The end result is the assembly is torqued where the flails hit the housing and bent the mud scrapers and flails broke - all within a few seconds. I didn't hit anything, so assume just the weight of the mower broke the pin................Zip..........................In the picture you can see how it's been torqued about 5 inches between the end (top) and the base. I may be able to twist it back, but what else is damaged? 8 flails are just gone in the middle of the tube.

Sorry to hear about your problem.
It looks like the flail mower housing is twisted to sort of a propeller shape.


Few years ago I ended up replacing a 72" rotary finish mower fabricated deck due to somewhat similar twisting issue or problem.
No doubt a competent metal workshop could have straightened it, but due to other wear & rust it was decided instead to replace the deck shell.


You can see the problem here if you look closely: