NGC - small engine gurus sound off (as in Briggs and Stratton)

[PeteS]

I figure with an on board pony keg and a catheter, If I start at 8am, should be done by lunchtime.

4 hours sounds about right. With three acres you should be checking out commercial zero turns. Save you about three hours every week.

Pete

[Sheepdog]

I have an 8 acre place that I keep mowed. I have two John Deere's that are both diesels: an x740 hydrostatic 60" belly mower and a 4100 4WD with a bucket and both a 60" bush hog and a 60" finishing mower. In addition, I have a diesel Ferris Zero Turn with a 52" deck. All three are US made and built like tanks. The zero turn is handy, but requires more maintenance. The JD 4100 will do nearly anything, but is cumbersome in close quarters. That big x740 belly mower is the workhorse. It's pretty handy around trees, shrubs, and buildings, has a big deck, and the maintenance is easy and infrequent. My JDs are NOT of the Home Depot variety, but super high quality products from the Midwest (and it was bought at a JD dealer). We also pull a Cyclone Rake behind it for picking up leaves/pine needles which we mulch our gardens with. The mower shreds the leaves and the rake vacuums them up. If you want to spend less, Kubota makes a similarly rugged version for less money. Diesel power has more torque and economy, plus you can purchase off-road diesel and avoid paying Highway taxes. A quality diesel hydrostatic belly mower from a reputable company is probably your best bet for cutting grass on a big place. You pay more at first, but they last a long time and won't crap out in the middle of the summer.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I figure with an on board pony keg and a catheter, If I start at 8am, should be done by lunchtime.

I wouldn't bet on it.  A lot depends on how many trees, flower beds, etc. you have to mow around.

[GearheadGrrrl]

To be honest, that low end "John Deere" might get you by for a couple years, but in the long run you're going to need a serious tractor or mower. Take a look at the standard and optional warranties for the low end mowers- You'll find them limited to a couple years and maybe 100 hours or so. With good maintenance you can beat that by a bit, but these mowers are built to a price rather than for durability. With a small spread of less than an acre, the average customer will get maybe 5 years out of one and then happily return to the big box store and spend $1000+ on another until they move on to assisted living, etc..

I've got about an acre and have managed to keep a Honda walk behind alive for 6 summers and probably 300 hours with oil changes, gearbox oil refills, and even had to adjust the valves once. Honda don't even cover gearbox oil changes in the manual, and it takes some serious use to get an OHC Honda engine to the point of needing a valve adjustment. So knowing that this mower is near end of life, wanting to preserve what life it has left to keep it as a spare and for trim work, I'm shopping for a new mower. Being that I need a machine that will carry a loader or blower to move drifted snow in the winter too and I'm having trouble at my age walking that acre in a day too, I ain't messin' around- I'm shopping for a diesel tractor with mower and loader, and a 3 point hitch for tilling the garden too. And not wanting to keep buying an underbuilt unit every few years, I'm preparing to lay out over $10k for a diesel compact tractor that should see me through the rest of my life and maybe my heirs as well. Sounds like a lot of $$$, but even if you're running it only a couple hours a week it makes sense to buy a machine whose working life is measured in thousands of hours.

[Lannis]

4 hours sounds about right. With three acres you should be checking out commercial zero turns. Save you about three hours every week.

Pete

Or more.

If you want a tractor that can pull a plow, a mower deck, and a snowblower, then buy a tractor.

If you are cutting grass, buy a grass-cutting machine.   A zero-turn mower is ALWAYS cutting grass (not swinging wide on turns or backing to square off a corner) and the big ones will cut grass at twice the speed of the typical lawn tractor .... We have a 62" deck on ours, and we don't even own a trimming mower; the big one cuts close enough for trimming.

Lannis

[kidsmoke]

here's one...what do ya'll know about the Jacobsen built Ford Garden Tractors from the late 70's? Kohler 10 - 12 hp motors. Seem like fairly robust machines. One with a rebuilt motor could do the trick

[Penderic]

I got a couple of 67's with kohler engines. Simple and robust but the old and used mower decks are so beat up, cracked or rusted that it is hard to find a good useable one. We use our Jacobsen and old Deere 112 on our 10 acre farm. Plowing, tilling and hauling mostly.




My latest resto in progress...





Engine is done. Waiting to get off my butt and make a metal bending brake for the sheet stainless I have to bend to make the new seat tub...


Thank goodness it is all simple straight bends!

[kidsmoke]

Penderic, nice shots. Looks like a beautiful spot. What's the HP rating on those 67 Kohlers? easy to maintain I imagine.

[Penderic]

Thanks! The motors are K301's 12 hp side valve 500cc singles. Lots of cheap rebuild kits for them. Very heavy cast iron case and lots of variations and accessories.







Simple electrics too ...

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

The K301 on my brother's Gravely walk-behind tractor was worn completely out, so he bought a Chinese-made Yanmar diesel clone and adapted it instead of rebuilding. Seems to work pretty well.

https://youtu.be/vBscD5PpVww

I rebuilt one that had already been bored to .030 over and needed to go larger to remove scoring in the cylinder walls. I used a K321 (14 hp) piston which was .125" larger than a standard K301 piston. There's a lot of metal in those engine blocks. The garden tractor pulling guys around here do it all the time and said I'd be okay as long as I didn't run nitrous. 

[PeteS]

When we bought our house 30 years ago, this came with it. This isn't mine but its just like mine. Came with the attachments shown plus a mower deck, snow blower and cultivator. I use now just to plow snow.
Its a Speedex S23 with rope pull, sans recoil made around 1956.




how do you upload photos


Pete

[wymple]

I see little to complain about on the newer B&S engines. Pullers are getting serious with the V-twins from them, also. Worst I ever had was a 9 HP Kawasaki.

[charlie b]

If you do buy, get something from a dealer, not the box store.  The box store models of any brand are not supported by the labeled mfg's.  BIL has a little Kubota and likes it but he has less than an acre.  I had a box store Troy with Kohler for about 10 years and it worked well, but, I only ran it 5 or 6 times a year (just to knock down weeds on an acre).  It took that abuse well, even on regular 10% gas and Stabil.

Zero turn's come in several sizes.  The park service dept in Alb uses larger zero turn to do the soccer parks.  Watched a guy do 4 soccer fields in about 30min (maybe 20).  He was really moving on the straights yet he could do a swivel around goal posts with ease.

I would have loved a real lawn tractor with snow blade and such.  I just didn't need one enough to justify the cost.