I got all the wheels installed, put on new blades yesterday.
As I was moving hoses around I noticed that there was some contamination in the oil. I removed the decks from the Jacobson last summer. Some of the hoses were left open. I wrapped the ends of all the hoes with plastic bacs and zip tied them. This spring when I went to look at them some of the bags were ripped open and full of water. I immediately sprayed WD40 in the holes on the deck motors that were open and moved the decks back in to the shop. I took the hoes off and drain them but I'm sure the WD40 and the water was still in the motors. Any way I was pretty sure that I was going to have a contamination issue.
I ran the mower some last night to make sure that the oil would be mixed pretty good. When I drained the oil the first time it was very milky. I didn't take pics of the oil. My loader holds about 40 gallons of hydraulic fluid. The mower holds 12. I haven't changed the hydraulic fluid in the loader in 7 years, but the oil is still clean. I have a valve on the bottom of the loader tank. I would fill a clean 5 gallon bucket from the loader and pour it into the mower until full. Then run the mower and all hydraulic functions for a few minutes.
After the first flush the oil was about 70% better but still cloudy. I filled and flushed again and the third drain the oil was 95% clean ( by my guess, very little visible cloudiness. I decided this was good enough for now. I filled it the third time with new oil. I wlll change it again at the end of the mowing season.
After all that I was ready to mow something. I mowed my yard on Thursday so I don't have much to mow. My back area has previously been bush hogged, and not at all this year. The grass was about 18" tall and some parts about 3' tall. I had to go pretty slow but it cut it. No issues with the two wheel drive, it has no positive traction at all but it still pulls it self pretty good. Didn't have any traction issues.
I ended up being able to reuse hoses from both machines to hook everything up. Some are longer than I would want but they will work for now. Nice to save some $$ on reusing hoses.
Last night before my first test run at 10 pm, I drove out of the shop, after 20' I lost steering and looked back, there was a stream of hydraulic fluid shooting straight up. I was able to find a 8' hose to go in a 3' spot.
Today after I was satisfied with the oil, I decided to air up the tires. I got the last one and the stem broke when I put the air nozzle on it. So a trip to TSC later and I was able to put a stem back in the tire.
I ended up mowing some of the rear super high grass, and some other high grass areas. I them went back to the shop and made an adjustment to the hydrostatic linkage to make it go faster forward and slower in reverse. I then mowed about 7 acres straight. I had no issues other than making three laps over the same spot because the blades turned off and I didn't realize it. (It was after dark) I was satisfied that it ran and cut good. There were a couple deck adjustment in there also.
I took some videos that I will put up on Youtube in the next few days. I'll get some more pics also.
If I hard turn it does miss some grass, the way my yard lays out, most of my runs are straight. It's not perfect but I am happy with it so far.
Pics to come.
