Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[jimmysisson]

Getting back to the optional rear wheels for a moment. My SHD88 has them, and I use them to take some of the weight off the rear roller and bearings. They swivel nicely for turns. However, they don't swivel all the way around, and the tires hit the rear housing at that point. Therefore, you must raise the flail to back up, sometimes a pain. If you don't raise it, the tires dig into the ground, not turning, since they're jammed against the housing. A pic will help here.

Also, the Montage catalog lists the rear trash deflector as 6" wide. That won't even come down to the top level of the rear roller. I can make a deflector, but how wide should it be? I was thinking 12". As it is now, with no deflector, there's cuttings all over the place, and me. Any advice here? Thanks, Jim

 

[IslandTractor]

Needing to lift the mower to back up would be a major PITA for me. I often back into thick brush with the mower spinning rather than driving through six foot high brush that hides stumps and old car parts Etc. When I back in I can see exactly where the mower is going to cut. Yes, turning around is uncomfortable but I typically back only about eight feet or so before driving forward and maneuvering along the brush line to back into the next chunk so I'm only twisted in my seat for 15 seconds or so at a time.

I still don't get the advantage of guide wheels on a flail. I do however always have my grapple mounted when mowing so the weight of the mower when raised and traveling isn't a problem. I guess a heavy mower on a light tractor (looking at you Mr Kubota) might be an issue for road travel if there is no front ballast.

 

[Ozarks Landowner]

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I would call the main office of John Deere in Moline, Illinois, they have to have records of this flail shredder type.


Once you have removed the chain flails which were ment for between the row ridge till shredding to remove weeds you will have no issues.

This Flail Crop Shredders rotor is a common JD design.


1. All V Belts made are metric and available
2. All Bearings are metric and available
3. The D rings are common and available
4. The D ring mounting straps are available
5. The side slicer knife on this shredder is a common hardened knife and available
6. Be sure to order the exact duplicate knife
a. measure the total length IN A STRAIGHT LINE
b. measure the width of the knive
c. measure the cutting edge length
d. measure the knife thickness






No worries, Call the Moline office and they should have no trouble getting you a copy of the manual for this shredder.


Your half way there, just be sure to wash it really good with a pressure washer or at a car wash or use a steam jenny, replace the V belts, knife hanger straps, D rings and knives, check the wheel bearings, make sure you have the right length PTO shaft, change the oil and then you can mow.

Getting closer for sure. I talked to Flailmaster this morning and they are sending me some sample set ups. She wanted pictures of the mower as she was sure she would be able to identify but didn't seem to know right off hand. Very helpful lady and nice to talk to friendly company personnel on the phone. That's hard to find anymore.

I did notice a tag on one of the cutter shafts bearing housing buried deep in green paint. I took some paint stripper and found a layer of red paint under the green. The tag is a sealMaster tag. the number on it is s2279m. I've got a call in to SealMaster now to see what they can tell me. I think I need to do a little more research before calling JD again.

 

[leonz]

Getting closer for sure. I talked to Flailmaster this morning and they are sending me some sample set ups. She wanted pictures of the mower as she was sure she would be able to identify but didn't seem to know right off hand. Very helpful lady and nice to talk to friendly company personnel on the phone. That's hard to find anymore.

I did notice a tag on one of the cutter shafts bearing housing buried deep in green paint. I took some paint stripper and found a layer of red paint under the green. The tag is a sealMaster tag. the number on it is s2279m. I've got a call in to SealMaster now to see what they can tell me. I think I need to do a little more research before calling JD again.

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I bet it was Katrina that you talked to. The red paint is a primer,
The Seal Master bearings were made in Ithaca, New York at one time by
Morse Chain Inc.

You will not know more until the bearing fails and you look for the metric numbers
on the inner race and outer cup of the bearing.

 

[leonz]

Getting back to the optional rear wheels for a moment. My SHD88 has them, and I use them to take some of the weight off the rear roller and bearings. They swivel nicely for turns. However, they don't swivel all the way around, and the tires hit the rear housing at that point. Therefore, you must raise the flail to back up, sometimes a pain. If you don't raise it, the tires dig into the ground, not turning, since they're jammed against the housing. A pic will help here. View attachment 469745

Also, the Montage catalog lists the rear trash deflector as 6" wide. That won't even come down to the top level of the rear roller. I can make a deflector, but how wide should it be? I was thinking 12". As it is now, with no deflector, there's cuttings all over the place, and me. Any advice here? Thanks, Jim View attachment 469746

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Hello Jimmy,

About the wheels, you can have a new pair of longer weldments made to allow you to back up but its better if you just clamp down on the steering brake if your comfortable doing that while moving if your mule has two brakes for the rear wheels.

Those wheels are high floatation tires if I remember correctly too so they have a larger diameter and width and that is why they get stuck while backing.

The 6" deflector for the mower is what you want. The clippings are carried over the flail mower rotor and bounce against the deflector rubber and then drop down and fall away under the edge of the deflector and the tiny clippings/dry grass are not carried back under the the flail mower and blasted up front all over you and the mule.

A wider deflector rubber will only hold the clippings and create a dust storm of grass clippings and fines as the knives will continue to pull the clippings forward until you lift the flail mower.

 

[cerestes]

I was able to grind enough of the beat up retaining clips to get wrenches on the bolts/nuts and remove the rest of the knife stations.

Any suggestions around using a really thick gear oil to avoid the leaking seal? I've also seen a few posts where folk stuffed the gear box full of grease. Anyone had success with that?

At the end of last year I picked up a 6' flail mower.
View attachment 469478View attachment 469479View attachment 469481

Ran it for a pasture clear or two, but the tractor needed the pto shaft replaced so it didn't see much use. Finally got the tractor repaired, and now I want to get the flail in good working order.

While I had the tractor apart, I figured I would replace the oil in the flail's gear box. The oil that came out was >REALLY< thick. Like ten minutes to slowly drain thick. I replaced it with 80-90 gear oil and went in for the night.
Came out to the garage in the morning to a puddle of oil on the floor. Looks to be leaking out from around the input shaft in the tractor side of the gear box. Oddly, it doesn't seem to have leaked at all in the 8 months sitting in the barn.
Long term, I imagine seals need replacing. Short term, would there be issues reverting to how I got it? Fill it with a much thicker oil?

Next, it needed a bunch of missing or broken knives replaced, and those that were still there were pretty beat up. Decided to replace all of them, but the order hasn't arrive yet. I pulled the old off last night.
A section of 4-5 knife stations must have hit something really bad. Maybe 3 stations bent, one missing entirely. For the three beat up stations, I haven't been able to remove the bolts. The retaining clips that hold the d-rings in are so bent that I can't get a wrench seated on either the bolt or the nut. Any suggestions there?
View attachment 469480

 

[Fallon]

Lots of people put corn header grease (barely pourable grease) or the like in old rotary cutters. Not worth it to replace the seals & the grease seems to work fine while not leaking.

I'm sure it doesn't lube quite as well, but a minor increase in wear on an old gearbox won't significantly change its lifespan. It's just a couple of basic gears in there, not a jet engine.

 

[Xfaxman]

Don't use regular grease, use the pourable grease, like Fallon said.

Here is one of the threads on it: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/271324-grease-rotary-cutter-gear-box.html

 

[cerestes]

Don't use regular grease, use the pourable grease, like Fallon said.
Here is one of the threads on it: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/271324-grease-rotary-cutter-gear-box.html

Thanks. I'll look around and see if I can find some corn header grease.

The tension pulley deflects the belt path way more than feels 'right. I suspect the belt it may be oversized. If that's the case, I would like to buy a new belt.
Based on the photos, anyone able to positively identify the mower? I haven't found any markings, but think it may be an older 6' Mott/Alamo.

 

[jimmysisson]

Leon, just to be sure, you know I was asking about the rear trash deflector, even though my pic was of the front. I made that one too, not sure how wide it should be. It's around 6" too. Thanks.
Jim

 

[leonz]

Leon, just to be sure, you know I was asking about the rear trash deflector, even though my pic was of the front. I made that one too, not sure how wide it should be. It's around 6" too. Thanks.
Jim

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Hello Jimmy,


You can allow yourself about 2 inches of rubber above the rear roller +- to allow the clippings to pass freely over the rear roller so you would want a 4 - 6 inch wide piece of belting across the rear discharge. The idea is to control all the flow coming off the knives in a regulated stream as it passes the deflector rubber. it also helps prevent anything from bouncing very far if a knife set kits something that is at the cutting height level.


I hope that we see more flail mowers with trash doors like the landpride flail mowerswith the cast hammer knives(Maschio brand) I hope Kubota does not kill them off from being sold by their Landpride implement division.

Hope this helps.

 

[Zerker]

Congratulations. Great mower. I have one. Blades are simple to change once you learn how. Thin metal piece rotates on the "passenger" side and the bars slide out causing the hangers to fall out. There is a good YouTube video in it.

Thanks to leonz from the get go, I've ordered my knew scoop knives from flail master. (I seem to have ordered a lot of verifies parts from them and they are always very knowledgeable ...

Great mower...

I watched that video even before I bought this mower as i was trying to find out all the info i could on flail mowers. I was going to buy a brand new Woodmaxx flail mower, and would have but i checked Craigslist one more time and found the Ford 907 for $950 with an extra set of flails/hangers. From the brief research I did, that seemed to be a fair price.

Whats the best way to drain the old oil? Tip the mower back? Unless theres a drain plug somewhere I didnt look. It was getting a bit dark when I was looking at it last night.

Is there anything else I should inspect before going to town with it? There was zero vibration when i had it up to speed. I have it all greased up with a heavy duty grease as well.

 

[Hoochy]

Just my 2 cents on the deflectors. My Alamo mower can be changed to cut either with the rotatation of the tractor tires or opposite. When the mower is set up to cut opposite rotation it creates a higher possibility of something getting thrown forward towards the tractor or the operator, so the front deflector is made out of steel and it is pretty heavy duty. When the mower is set up to cut with the same rotation as the tractor tires the debri flies out the back of the mower and they only use a piece of heavy rubber like you see in truck mud deflectors.

I prefer to have it cut with the rotation of the tractor tires so nothing can fly out the fron and it has performed extremely well for me

Hoochy.

 

[leonz]

I watched that video even before I bought this mower as i was trying to find out all the info i could on flail mowers. I was going to buy a brand new Woodmaxx flail mower, and would have but i checked Craigslist one more time and found the Ford 907 for $950 with an extra set of flails/hangers. From the brief research I did, that seemed to be a fair price.

Whats the best way to drain the old oil? Tip the mower back? Unless theres a drain plug somewhere I didnt look. It was getting a bit dark when I was looking at it last night.

Is there anything else I should inspect before going to town with it? There was zero vibration when i had it up to speed. I have it all greased up with a heavy duty grease as well.

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Hello Zerker,


Welcome to the Flail Mower Nation. IF you have not done it already check the V belts and if frayed give them a decent burial and replace them with new Kevlar V belts of the same lot number.

You may have a bottom drain plug. You need to check it in the daylight hours otherwise you have to roll it over.

Did you check under the V belt guard and dig out all the grease fittings that may be buried with rubber and grass dust?

Make sure that there is no wire or twine wrapped around the shaft and rubbing against the "Flail Mower Rotor" bearings.

Is your PTO shaft the proper length? Remember that when you raise the mower up the PTO shaft collapses like an radio antennae. There are instructions on You tube and here on the forum to correctly size to length a new PTO shaft.

 

[Ozarks Landowner]

I've got all the knives and attachments off the drum.

I could turn the drum easily by hand with the belts removed but there was a severe wobble to the entire machine. The drum itself is straight and runs true. The bearings all seem to be tight.There was a very large weight welded on one end of the drum with smaller ones elsewhere on either end that obviously has it out of balance.

Shouldn't the drum be balanced with all attachments off of it or does the blades balance it out when attached?

 

[IslandTractor]

I've got all the knives and attachments off the drum.

I could turn the drum easily by hand with the belts removed but there was a severe wobble to the entire machine. The drum itself is straight and runs true. The bearings all seem to be tight.There was a very large weight welded on one end of the drum with smaller ones elsewhere on either end that obviously has it out of balance.

Shouldn't the drum be balanced with all attachments off of it or does the blades balance it out when attached?

I'd think it would clearly be balanced without knives. The factory balances the rotors before putting knives on. They typically use just small weights to get balance so I don't know where the big weight came from. Knives and mounting hardware is uniform and equally distributed so shouldn't affect dynamic balance when spinning.

Sounds to me like someone did something odd in adding the big weight. You might consider removing the big weight and testing again.

 

[leonz]

I've got all the knives and attachments off the drum.

I could turn the drum easily by hand with the belts removed but there was a severe wobble to the entire machine. The drum itself is straight and runs true. The bearings all seem to be tight.There was a very large weight welded on one end of the drum with smaller ones elsewhere on either end that obviously has it out of balance.

Shouldn't the drum be balanced with all attachments off of it or does the blades balance it out when attached?

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Hello Ozarks Landowner,


In a properly designed, built, and constructed flail mower the Flail Mower Rotors are first balanced without the knive sets and then re balanced with the knife pairs before the machine is finished.

If there is a wobble without the knife sets and mounting parts with the mower operating or while the PTO is running at the 540 rpm engine speed there is a huge problem.

Unless you take the time to remove the flail mower rotor and take it to a machine shop with high speed balancer
for drive shafts and use a dial indicator along the mounts and the flats of the flail mower rotor to check the flail mower rotor for "true" your going to have problems.

I have to go now.

 

[CTWright]

Hindsight from each used flail mower I've owned. Replace both drum bearings and both the height roller bearings before you start using it seriously. Keep any good bearings for spares

 

[CADplans]

I was riding past the local JD dealer one day,,, and I made an impulse purchase!!

I think it was my first ever AG impulse purchase,,, it is way better than the old 6 1/2 foot bush hog!!

 

[Code54]

Nice!! - I am guessing that one was brand new!