Today’s award for stupid goes to…

[johnjk]

Me. Wondered why the cut was uneven. Duh. Beating the grass in to submission didn’t work

 

[mcmxi]

Ha! That's awesome! At least you figured out something was wrong and got it corrected.

 

[GeoHorn]

LOLOL... You’re not alone.

 

[NCL4701]

Glad I’m not the only one that’s done that.

 

[johnjk]

You know I looked at them at least a dozen times before letting the deck back down and swore they were right. Off with the deck since the middle one is upside down as well. I did pick up a new set of blades today. Those will go on the shelf seeing that the sharp edges on these never touched the grass.

 

[motionclone]

I was mowing a grassy area of our woods recently and hit lots of rocks. After that it just left a LOT of grass standing so i had to mow over it multiple times figuring i dulled the blade then i saw the blade laying in the grass. I figured i mowed for 20 minutes with 1 of 3 blades completely missing..lol

 

[bird dogger]

LOL! Welcome to the most distinguished club!!

 

[twomany]

It's not stupid

When you put the blade on, you were upside down too!

 

[B2710]

i mowed for 20 minutes with 1 of 3 blades completely missing..lol

That is a good one....

My wife did this a few years back, I was working on the finishing mowing and had not put the middle blade on yet. She asked if I was done, I was in the shop at the time and said naaaaah, but she heard yeaaaa. She proceeded to mow about 2 acres before it dawned on her something was just not right.

It was a really neat pattern she had mowed around the pasture, kind of looked like a maze. Never knew she could drive that straight.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

guy up he road asked me to look at his rider,uneven cutting, dealer had done tuneup and 'stuff'. I was busy, said 'write name/number,I'll call you in 3 days'. Called him next day, said 'got it done sooner than I thought, so how's $50 ?, Normal rate was $75.. Great, be right over.
Dealer had put 1 of the blades on upside down....3 mor elike hime and I'd made $300/hr....

 

[Frankb]

My front field is just over 500' long and 200' wide. After mowing around the garden and back field I moved to the front. I mowed length wise and made a good 4 or 5 passes before realizing I never lowered the deck into cutting mode. I did turn on the deck, but for some reason never lowered it. Talk about feeling the fool. Somehow I was able to cut the back field and some of the side before the deck got raised on me. Still can't remember pressing down on that lever with my foot. Put some nice tire tracks in that field that morning.

 

[motionclone]

This should be a thread where everyone visits and lists the stupid thing they did that day..lol

 

[Frankb]

This should be a thread where everyone visits and lists the stupid thing they did that day..lol

The stupid thing I did today is admit the stupid thing I did. ;-)

 

[NCL4701]

Long back story no one would want as to why but when I got my Kubota, my Dad agreed I could take over his bush hog he’d bought used 30 years ago. Told me it worked decent but for some reason had a pretty good vibration for the past few years. I knew his friend up the road had been the one using it recently but the friend would only mow what HE wanted mowed for hunting and I wasn’t allowed to use it so I was basically bush hogging the other fields with my zero turn for years and constantly wrenching on it due to the abuse.

Bunch of stuff happened about the time I got the Kubota: Dad had some health problems that knocked him down for several months, bush hog buddy left the picture, and I took over the bush hog and mowing duties. First time out I asked Dad if it needed any maintenance and he said no, all in good shape so far as he knows. He’s a better mechanic than I’ll ever be so I take his word for it and head to the first field.

Run it up to 540 and run about 100’ through 3’ grass. Grass looks like it’s been beaten with a golf club and the whole thing is rocking and rolling like it’s about to fly apart. Call Dad again. Told him it’s sort of OK at half speed but comes to pieces at 540. Ask him if it was like that last time he ran it. He says no, but he hasn’t run it in over 5 years and no one has ever run it at 540 because the only tractors it’s ever been on bogged down to more like 300 as soon as it hit the grass. So back to the shop for an inspection. PTO shaft had been taken apart at some point and put back together out of phase; blades looked like bush hog buddy had mowed about 20 acres of rip rap; one of the blades couldn’t swing out because the 30’ of baling wire wrapped around the stump jumper had it bound up (miraculously the other one functioned fine); and the gear box had just a little soot black goo but no oil so the gears were bone dry. Was able to make out the manufacturer name on it, downloaded the manual, and about 4 hours later had it ready to go back to the field.

No telling how long it had been running with one blade swinging out and the other bound up.

 

[leveraddict]

At least you didn't have to come here and ask us why your mower wasn't cutting right!

 

[BAP]

So you figured out that you had your PTO lever in the reverse position not forward?

 

[johnjk]

I was mowing a grassy area of our woods recently and hit lots of rocks. After that it just left a LOT of grass standing so i had to mow over it multiple times figuring i dulled the blade then i saw the blade laying in the grass. I figured i mowed for 20 minutes with 1 of 3 blades completely missing..lol

I’ve done that brush hogging. Break the shear bolt and continue on for a good 15 minutes before it sinks in that the brush hog is really smooth but cutting like crap. PTO is turning but not the blades. I now make that sheer bolt one of my checks prior to use.

 

[dirtydeed]

Brother in law gave me a mower once since he was unhappy with its performance...can you guess why?

 

[GeoHorn]

My finish mower has a puzzling design IMO.... from above…the blades rotate clockwise…. But they are attached with LEFT hand threaded bolts. No lock washers. No safety wire. Just a plain washer under a 14mm LH bolt.
Not knowing this, at about 5 hrs operation (new) the center spindle seized …. presented as squealing and smell of burning rubber. I contacted the seller and they quickly shipped me a new spindle and new belts.
As I disassembled it….my first error was to use my pneumatic impact to remove the bolt…and SNAPPED it…because I had no ideal it would be a LH bolt. (Think about this…. if the blades rotate CW ….. the bolt (entering from beneath) should be an ordinary RH thread)….or it would tend to loosen due to resistance against the grass…. right? The spindle drives the blades and the bolt… and it is driving a LH bolt in an UN-threading direction! I guess the chineese are on the opposite hemisphere AND the lower hemisphere as well…??)
So I called back and they sent spare bolts. (Ever try to find 14MM X 1.5 pitch LH Bolts Locally? Fastenal has them…. for $4 each…and will happily sell me a bag of 100 …their smallest quantity.).

OK…back together and mowing just fine. Put it away for the winter.

Now comes Spring 2021 and while mowing I notice the center blade is not mowing as cleanly as the outer two blades. I figure that’s due to high grass and do a second pass…. but no improvement…

THEN the darn thing starts RATTLING and VIBRATING but only about 2 or 3 seconds every 10 seconds. …and the mowed area is having a worsening effect from the center blade. I take it o the shop and raise the mower…place a jackstand beneath it for safety and crawl under….

The center blade is freely spinning on it’s spindle/boss because that LH bolt is LOOSE by about 3 threads. AND when tightened the blade still has a loose fitment…. EASY to spin by hand while the spindle is unmoving. I remove the bolt and realize the flat washer has a concave shape…so I reverse it to a cone shape and reinstall that LH bolt with the impact wrench….. and THINK I’m thru….when I decide to TEST it again for tightness against the spindle by spinning it by hand again…and realize the blade is facing differently than the outer two blades…

YEP. I’ve installed it upside-down, just like the johnjk (the OP) demonstrated in #1 post. DOH!

Finally got it put back together and took the rest of the day “off”. (Beer:30)

 

[johnjk]

My operators manual for my mmm (RC60-24B) calls out a LH thread on the blade closest to the discharge chute but it is RH like the other two. I used a breaker bar to loosen and when I couldn’t budge that one I tried the old loosen/ tighten trick to break it free and it spun free when it should have tightened down. Got me wondering if I had an old design or a replacement spindle that the dealer just grabbed and used what he had.