Drum mower experiences and possible hacks..

[icehorse]

I recently purchased a 53" drum mower from Titan. I'm still working with them, but my conclusion is that they've been making non-PTO gear for a while and they're pretty good at that, but that they're new to making PTO gear? The reason I say this is that for the last 3 months all I've been hearing from them is that they don't have any parts for the mower they sent me. That seems really bad to me. Sigh.

So I got about 4 hours of cutting done and then the gearbox broke. They told me that "maybe" they will have replacement gearboxes available in 5-6 weeks, yikes!!

So a couple of questions:

1 - I've been looking for a 3rd party gearbox. Two PTO spindles, set at a 90 degree angle, rated for 40 hp. I've found a few 90 degree gear boxes, but they aren't PTO spindles. Does anyone know of 3rd party gearboxes?

2 - Our fields are just two bumpy for the drum mower the way it's set up. I've thought about adding a hack where I suspend it a few inches above the ground. But it seems more common to add a spacer kit or lift kit so that when the bottom of the mower is on the ground, the blades are a few inches higher off the ground. Any thoughts or experience on this?

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

No idea in the gearbox. If it’s too bumpy, does slowing down while mowing seem to help? My fields aren’t perfectly smooth, but the sections that are worse in terms of bumps, I found slowing down helps a lot.

you can put a lift kit on a drum mower, but the bottom of the drum still has to ride on the ground.

 

[icehorse]

No idea in the gearbox. If it’s too bumpy, does slowing down while mowing seem to help? My fields aren’t perfectly smooth, but the sections that are worse in terms of bumps, I found slowing down helps a lot.

you can put a lift kit on a drum mower, but the bottom of the drum still has to ride on the ground.

When I let it run along the ground it sort of flopped around, I know, not a great description. More precisely, the drums didn't stay vertical. I'm imagining that with a good drum mower, the drums sort of follow the terrain but stay pretty close to vertical?

What was your experience with how the drums moved as you cut?

One more question: Does it seem to you that the weight of the drums is somewhat held up by the arm, or is the total weight of the drums resting on the ground?

BTW, if I can fix the gearbox or get a new one, I also think I'll do some sort of lift kit.

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

They’re tricky to get set up properly, in terms of being level. I’m not sure what adjustments your particular model has, but for me I watched the following video, and it does a good job describing how to get it how you want it.

 

[icehorse]

They’re tricky to get set up properly, in terms of being level. I’m not sure what adjustments your particular model has, but for me I watched the following video, and it does a good job describing how to get it how you want it.

Yeah, I watched that video but it seems like my mower isn't anywhere near that sophisticated

As I mentioned, it just sort of flops around.

Let me reiterate a question I asked you after the fact in a previous post (my bad):

One more question: Does it seem to you that the weight of the drums is somewhat held up by the arm, or is the total weight of the drums resting on the ground?

 

[KSCessnaDriver]

Yeah, I watched that video but it seems like my mower isn't anywhere near that sophisticated

As I mentioned, it just sort of flops around.

Let me reiterate a question I asked you after the fact in a previous post (my bad):

One more question: Does it seem to you that the weight of the drums is somewhat held up by the arm, or is the total weight of the drums resting on the ground?

the majority of the weight should be running on the drums, if I remember correctly, and that’s how I had mine set up to run

 

[icehorse]

the majority of the weight should be running on the drums, if I remember correctly, and that’s how I had mine set up to run

I really appreciate you taking the time to discuss this!

I'm still not quite understanding this: On the one hand, I think we're agreeing that the drums should be leveled, and that that's done by adjusting the mower and the 3 points? But then if the drums are mostly supporting themselves, how and why does leveling make any difference?

In my case, the "arms" that extend from the 3 pt. end of the mower out to the drums are very loose, and I think that's by design. So the drums can tilt in every direction from upright, and the two drums are supported by one attachment point between them so that they can "float", left side higher then right side and vice versa.

In other words, I would say that there is a lot of "play" in my drums' alignment. I suppose that if everything is leveled, that means there isn't too much play in any one direction?

And it's also the case on my mower that the entire weight of the arms and drums are on the ground. There is zero support from the rest of the mower except maybe to keep it relatively upright.