Flail Mower Let's talk flail mowers

[Hilbilly]

I had a chance to run my Alamo SHD88 flail mower in very heavy, tall grass and weeds which put noticeable load on the tractor. Net result: it was the ideal tool for the job. Remembering your post, I went around the machine and felt it for hot surfaces as soon as I finished mowing. Nothing was hot near or around the belt shroud or in that area at all. Mine is a plain normal v-belt with a strong off-the shelf tension spring.

I wish mine was the same. I tightened the belts to 60lbs, according to the Gates tension gauge and it still gets hot. Looks like I will have to pull the belts and clean the pulleys to see if that helps.

 

[leonz]

Hello Hillbilly,

Tell me something, does your gearbox have a vent????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
If it does not have a vent it will hold the heat from the gears meshing while you are mowing.

If it does have a vent it may be plugged.

 

[JWR]

I wish mine was the same. I tightened the belts to 60lbs, according to the Gates tension gauge and it still gets hot. Looks like I will have to pull the belts and clean the pulleys to see if that helps.

I can't remember if you said you had checked the bearings on the flail rotor? There has to be very heavy loading or belt slippage for so much heat. Are your bearings mounted close to where it is getting hot ?

With everything off and out of gear you should be able to roll the rotor with all the flails on it by hand. Not terribly smooth and easy but free and not binding.

 

[lostcreekranch]

I wish mine was the same. I tightened the belts to 60lbs, according to the Gates tension gauge and it still gets hot. Looks like I will have to pull the belts and clean the pulleys to see if that helps.

Do yourself a favor and get a $20 infrared temperature sensor so you can isolate the problem.

https://www.amazon.com/infrared-temperature-sensor/s?k=infrared+temperature+sensor

 

[Hilbilly]

Leon, Not sure if it has a vent but there is oil coming from the filler cap and I'm thinking it could be a vented cap. I will check. But the heat is originating from the pulley end, not the gear box.

JWR, When the belts were off I turned the drum by hand and there was very little or no resistance and I couldn't feel any rumble or any other signs of a bad bearing. I also turned the idler pulley and the driveshaft pulley. Couldn't feel anything that indicated a bad bearing there either.

Rick, Good idea. I have one of those and will give it a go soon. Other things going on right now and I probably won't be using the flail again until next spring.

 

[Fallon]

Hello Hillbilly,

Tell me something, does your gearbox have a vent????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
If it does not have a vent it will hold the heat from the gears meshing while you are mowing.

If it does have a vent it may be plugged.

Vents prevent seals from blowing out due to atmospheric or tempature induced pressure changes between the inside & outside of a gearbox (or transmission or many other things). A tiny hole wont make one lick of difference in getting heat out. The cast iron housing conducts many orders of magnitude more heat out.

And as a side note that's one reason many gearboxes & transmission housings are made from cast iron rather than steel. Despite only differing by a few percent carbon, cast iron conducts heat like 30-40% better. It has other good mechanical manufactur & financial features, despite being rather brittle.

 

[Ford850]

I wish mine was the same. I tightened the belts to 60lbs, according to the Gates tension gauge and it still gets hot. Looks like I will have to pull the belts and clean the pulleys to see if that helps.

Are the pulleys in alignment, or maybe the belts are running at a slight angle and producing heat? Aligned: ||| or misaligned: \\\

 

[thoner7]

For Ford, anything with an "L" at the end means "light duty". If you plan on mowing your lawn or grass that isn't very long it would be okay. That price is a little high for the "L" in a 5 foot version. It would need to have all new belts, flails, and mounts along with good bearings and a slip clutch PTO shaft for it to be worth that in my opinion. If it was the standard 917 it would be worth that with good (but not necessarily new) parts. Remember, it will cost about $300 for flails on the course cut and probably more on the fine cut models.

Are all Ford's more light duty mowers or just the L versions?

 

[thoner7]

What's the reputation of Tiger Flail mowers? I've found of few of them a reasonable distance away. They seem heavy duty and mainly marketed for roadside ditch mowing

 

[DavesTractor]

Leon, Not sure if it has a vent but there is oil coming from the filler cap and I'm thinking it could be a vented cap. I will check. But the heat is originating from the pulley end, not the gear box.

JWR, When the belts were off I turned the drum by hand and there was very little or no resistance and I couldn't feel any rumble or any other signs of a bad bearing. I also turned the idler pulley and the driveshaft pulley. Couldn't feel anything that indicated a bad bearing there either.

Rick, Good idea. I have one of those and will give it a go soon. Other things going on right now and I probably won't be using the flail again until next spring.

I bet you have a bearing starting to fail. Let me copy/paste a post I wrote over 6000 responses ago when I was asked why we no longer sell the Caroni mower. See below:

We had about a 25% failure rate on rotor bearings (on the drive side) in the first year, and then the race would weld itself to the shaft. It was a 2 hour or more job, plus a special order bearing to fix it. Now we stock the bearings and fix them for people that buy them at TSC, or people that bought them from us in the past. On the ones we sold, we did not charge anyone for a repair, but since the failure was due to inadequate greasing, or at least appeared to be, we would not ask Caroni to warranty it. So we ended up not making any money on them. That being said, if a customer is really diligent and greases the bearings often, they do hold up.

I have used Vrisimo flails for years. I sold one recently that probably had 3000 hours on it. Yes we replaced some bearings and even the rear roller over the years, but they are standard flange bearings and cheap and easy to change. So with the problems we were having on some of the Caroni's and the great luck we had with Vrisimo, we just decided to drop the Caroni and sell a commercial grade unit. Plus at about the same time TSC opened in our town and they sell Caroni. They buy in much higher volume, so our profit margin would have had to shrink. Combine all the factors, and it was time to drop Caroni.

As far as use, the Caroni has a rather small and noisy gearbox and if used for a couple of hours it will vent a fair bit of gear lube out of the gearbox. The Rears, Dandle, Alamo, and Vrisimo mowers just make a humming sound and generally don't vent much gear lube.

Just to be clear though, with good care, it's hard to beat a Caroni in a non-commercial application. They certainly are NOT poor qualtiy, they just aren't made for guys that mow all day every day like in orchards.