Rotary mower v Finish Mower pulling down Yanmar tractor. HP Requirements..??

[treedawg]

I have a YM2000 that will pull my old 5' Deere rotary mower all day w/o any problems.

I recently purchased a used Deere 261 finish mower that appeared to be in very good shape. I removed the drive belt and hand spun every blade to check the spindles and replaced all the blades at the same time. Everything seemed AOK and the spindles turned freely by hand. Today I put it behind the YM2000 and it had trouble getting up to speed and seemed to be under a constant strain. My YM2000 overheated after pulling the finish mower for less than 1/2 hour.

It seems like most mfg's claim their 5 foot finish mowers will run with a minimum of 20hp. What am I missing here..???

Good thing I got a great deal on the Deere 261 so I can move it if necessary but prefer to keep it.

td

 

[clemsonfor]

I can run a 6ft Bush Hog brand finish mower behind my ym2000. It's a pretty good load but it won't overheat it. I also run a 5 ft bush hog brand bush hog in the tallest stuff without problem as well.

 

[winston1]

For what it's worth I can tell you that high lift blades require much more hp.

 

[treedawg]

Maybe that's the problem....????

When I replaced the blades I used heavy gator mulching blades.

 

[gioacchino]

My first thought is maybe something in the mower gearbox is sticking?

 

[clemsonfor]

My first thought is maybe something in the mower gearbox is sticking?

I thought in the original post he said it all turned free by hand?

 

[gioacchino]

I thought in the original post he said it all turned free by hand?

He did say all the spindles turned freely.

 

[EddieWalker]

How tall is the grass that you are cutting with the finish mower? A finish mower cannot handle as much materials as a rotary cutter. You cannot let the grass get too tall. If you have the height set to cut at two inches, you should be cutting when it gets to 3 to four inches, not 6 inches or more. Also, if you have really thick grass, you this will become even more important.

My finish mower is a foot wider then my rotary cutter. I have to go super slow to cut the grass with it if I let it get too tall. To use it and get the nice results from it, I have to mow about every two weeks, which I just don't have time for, so I rarely use my finish mower. I got really nice results, but now I just focus on the areas that I want nice with my riding mower, and do the rest off the land when I have the time using my rotary cutter.

 

[Rock Crawler]

I bought a 72" Land Pride FDR2572 finish mower for my 25 HP B2650 and found that my tractor could barely handle the load of the mower from a PTO power perspective. I could handle the weight on the tractor just fine, but I did not have enough oomph to move more than walking pace on any steep slopes. On level ground I was pretty much fine.

I dumped that and got an old 60" rotary cutter. From a HP perspective I can run and chop up trees and never drop a single RPM. A rotary cutter takes a fraction of the power of a finish mower based on my experience. I have run 2 rotary cutters, a 72" that I borrowed a few times and a 60" that I eventually purchased after borrowing the 72" one. I have more than enough HP for the 72" or the 60 rotary.

They are not all comparable from a perspective of rotary cutter size for finish mower size when talking about HP requirements.

 

[stevem5215]

We have a Chinese made FarmPro 2420 2cyl diesel tractor that we pull a 5' Finish 3 blade deck. It will cut fine if the grass isn't very tall. But if thick or tall it will push the tractor to the limits and overheat it. The 4' Brush hog deck has no problem in anything and never overheats it. But the cut quality sucks on grass and you have to run it over it twice to get it decent enough that the finish deck would look great on just once. (if low enough of course)

The fact is that finish decks just due their nature of cutting grass better require more hp due all those blades actually getting cut. Unlike on a rough cut mower where 1/2 of it isn't fully cut smoothly off. All "rough cut" as the deck implies.

Steve