fine tuning a mower/recycler deck

[cod 116]

Picked up a second 42" RD deck this sumer with a recycler set up. Hoping the I could use it this fall instead of raking, I disassembled it, cleaned and painted everything and finally put it back together.  Tried it out yesterday and immediately noticed that it did not cut smoothly at all.  I tried leveling the deck and it helped some but it seems to throw clippings out in front of deck ( on the right side ) and I don't think that's how it's supposed to operate.  When I installed the blades I checked to see how they lined up and all three are within a 1/16 of each other which seem reasonable but I've been wrong before.  I also have to mention that I like to cut my grass high and on deck I normally use I've replaced original wheels with larger ones and I adjusted the height of the lift arm upwards so the deck can not go as low as when the tractor was new.

 

So any suggestions would be welcome and especially on what's best for recycler decks.

 

Thanks - Cod

 

 

[KyBlue 652]

my 36" RD throws clippings out the Front Right ... it's how the blades spin.  When you block that off into a recycler ... if there are tons of clippings, it's going to want to go somewhere, especially with the deck high. 

 

Just my thoughts on it ... could be way off the mark, I don't run the recycler decks so it's just a logical guess based on my 36" RD

[Forest Road 594]

I wasn't a huge fan of the recycler. You have to cut often as the longer clippings don't really break down. And the darn thing weighed too much. I sold the insert and haven't looked back.

[cod 116]

Had a chance to experiment some more yesterday and discovered a couple of things that may have been causing some of the problem.  First off the lift arm on my tractor was bent with a "custom curve" just where the lift chain attaches.  The adjusting bolt for the lift chain was bent as well along with the threaded boss the adjusting bolt goes into.  When I looked closer I found that the lift arm pivot was bent so all of these bends were causing the deck to lift up and to the right when you raised the mower to the travel position.

 

Luckily I have another identical tractor and none of it's lift parts were customized, so I replaced everything.  After that I installed the recycler deck ( and Forest isn't joking about heavy ) and readjusted the leveling screw.  I could not get the deck level but it has a slight forward pitch and as I had run out of threads on the adjusting bolt, I left it there.

 

Once all that was done I took the beast for a test drive and it worked like a charm as I drove it around a couple of trees that were shedding and cleaned the lawn up nicely.  I think I'll have to mow slower than normal and the lawn needs to be dry to get the best results but it beats towing a sweeper or raking.