Give Me Two Weeks and I'll Figure It Out

The bush hog wasn't cutting when we hooked it up to the tractor this spring. I'd left if off until May because it was such a wet spring and I wanted to leave the rear blade on there to clean up the driveway. When I put it on a few weeks ago I ran it around the yard and not only wasn't it cutting (not a blade) it was dragging and marking the yard. Not a huge big deal in the pasture, but I decided to stop and mess with it later.

I'd found TractorByNet a couple years ago when looking for advice on tractors and implements, but hadn't posted since then. So I posted a question in their forums a couple weeks ago. I asked why the thing might not be cutting and got two pieces of advice:

• Make sure the blades are on it (haven't been stolen)
• Check the sheer bolt.

I was pretty sure that the blades were there since no one really comes on the property. So over a few weeks I've been looking at the blades, checking out the blade and making sure they were tight (they were), I checked the sheer bolt, and things seemed to be working. I also re-leveled it and then checked that the front was lower than the rear (another piece of advice I got).

I tried it again last weekend and it wasn't cutting, so I brought it back up to the garage, raised the deck and made sure the blades were under there. They were, and they seemed tight. So today I checked my post again, adding  a few notes, and saw someone mention that I should be sure the blades weren't rusted and frozen and that the slip clutch was tight.

I'd wanted to sharpen the blades a little, so last night I purchased an angle grinder, since someone said that it was a great way to touch them up. After pulling them off last year and sharpening them, it was a pain. Easy to sharpen, hard to get back on. While waiting for a phone call, I got out my face mask and touched up the blades, getting a 1/16-1/8" edge on them. You don't want a sharp edge, you want it to shatter stuff like trees and yucca, not slice them (leaves and edge).

Since I wasn't sure what else to do, I grabbed a blade, grabbed the drive shaft, and turned. I should have not been able to turn one without the other, but I could.

Aha! Slip clutch is loose.

It looked tight, which is a bad way to test. It seemed to be tight enough to have the blades or the driveshaft turn the other, but under load, like 540rpm, it slips.

A quick tightening of the 8 bolts holding it in and I decided to take it out for a spin. Success! It cut right through and I got a nice 1/4 acre or so slice cut in the front pasture.

Tia was happy it was working and I told her that give me two weeks and I can figure most things out.

Now I have a nice 40-50 hours of tractor time to clean up the pastures.