On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 10:38:25AM -0400, Mark Andy wrote:
>
> Anyway, our yard at the new house gets and seems to stay reasonably wet.
> Every time (three so far :-) we've mowed, we've managed to get our 50" cub
> cadet lawn tractor stuck somewhere where the lawn is especially wet (to
> the point where if you walk on it, your foot sinks in and immediately gets
> soaked, but you're also able to walk without loosing your shoes).
>
> I'm wondering if there's ways to improve this. The LT tires seem to "load
> up" pretty easily with wet grass / mud for instance... That can't be
> helping traction. It'd also be nice if I could, like on my dad's older
> Kubota "real" tractor, step down on a pedle to lock the rear diff for a
> bit, but I'm guessing that isn't a practical modification to a standard LT
> hydrostatic transmission...
>
> Any "been there, done that" advice?
I have that diff lock on my Kubota too, it's really useful, but
AFAIK its not available on lawn tractor hydro transaxles.
Try lower pressure in the rear tires. You'll get a less even mow if
you mow on sidehills, but you'll get more traction.
(I've run down to 8 psi on my LT).
Or change your mowing direction so you're going downhill on
the soft spots, and/or get a good 'run' at them.
The LT pattern is designed to not chew up the lawn too bad when tires spin.
More agressive tires will be using your grass for traction. :-)
A final option, especially if your getting stuck on level ground,
is to add weights. 50 lbs or so on the hitch will add some traction.
As you mow more you'll get better at it. It's not super-skilled like
loader work or welding but there's some tricks to it, like shifting your
weight to the wheel that's losing traction, and backing off the throttle
before the tires spin up. Lots of times when I lose traction I can get
going again with light throttle and a little brake to keep the low traction
tire from spinning.
Eric
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