oh crap moment
Ditch-Runner
Member Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭
my riding mower chewed up a drive pully and a belt I think a stick got wedged under the deck( my wire was on so I am blaming her as normal 😁 ) but our grass needed mowed around the house and waiting on parts even three days was not going to be a good thing
so while I was my grand kids 1st BD party yesterday I borrowed my youngest sons JD zero turn .. did I mention I have never even been on one much less used one 🙄
but that never stopped me before so to be safe to start out I avoided and close contact with the cars and trucks and any thing I could crash into. I was kind of getting the hang of it but a long way from being good on it and it was Acquard at least for this old fellow then out of the blue "wack " DRT OH crap now waht .. I had ran over a garden hose and it wrapped its self auld the blades like a huge snake going for dinner .. he had the deck set very low and on my rider I just run over the garden hoses no problem . how embarrassing 😐️ out comes my case pocket knife and 1/2 dozen + cuts later the hose is in tiny pieces and many profanity words send toward space and I was back mowing . not as bad as it could have been but still I messed up hate to say it but 1st time in well at least days 😲
Comments
First time on a ZT can interesting.
I've feel your pain having done the same in the past
Yeah, it's best to do a visual check for debris and 'stuff' before mounting the machine.
I've never run a ZT mower but 'ASSume' it's somewhat similar to driving a skid loader which can be a challenge for beginners.
Finding 'stuff' with equipment is often aggravating AND expensive. Son, Grandson, and I were out walking a soybean field Friday evening and lo & behold, there's a bit of rusty metal showing amongst the baby soybeans. Kicked it-didn't move. Pulled on the end a bit-still didn't loosen. Both of the boys got hold of it and HOLY CRAP, it's a buggy axle buried in the dirt. Long ago, buggy axles were quite often used as fence braces and when I was a kid, there had been a fence right through that spot.
I have no idea how much it would have cost if that 5' long steel axle had gone into the combine. Apparently, it had been covered by a bulldozer 50 years ago when the fence was pushed out and Mother Nature had brought it back to the surface for us to find one way or another. MN is a tough old beach.
Kids catch on in minutes, let them do it.
I had a similar experience hitting a small exposed piece of black landscape fabric with my lawn tractor. I said a small piece but after the blade hit it, that fabric turned into a pull the table cloth off the table magic trick!! Also uprooted all of my wife's entire plot of day lilies!
It took me a couple hours to cut that stuff out of the mower deck! 😫
I have been looking ZT and will likely get one the next time I change mowers. My good buddy has one, he managed to run it into his pond the first time out. He had caught on since then !!🙂
Driving it was a bit odd but with half hour or so I was doing OK but to get it down to where it's fluid motion not so much
I have driven skid loader many times but the mower being such a short wheelbase reacts a lot faster
Doubt if I buy one but was interesting and they are faster at mowing the same areas I do with my cub cadet riding mower
I knew the hose was there but the deck was set lower and it got me well the garden hose
Hide the hose the hose. Nothing happened.
ZT are interesting and have to learn the quirks, like mine loves to slide into ditches and I SWEAR, that would not happen again. The hose is like running over 50 dollar bill hoping you won't catch" it. That's on you.
I bought a hose at the NAPA store in 1985.It had a warranty that if anything ever happen to it,even ran over with a mower,they would replace it free.I still have that hose and it works fine.
normally if I cut one its nothing a new joint repair kit would not fix. with that said having one in a dozen + pieces after being ran thru a large blender and a pock knife to cut away the carnage . the mower had the hose twisted and mangled around all three blades .. worst garden hose accident I have ever seen 😁
I have one ditch line along the highway I avoid it did not trust my skill as a fist timer now 40 years ago I would have taken it as a challenge but I just dont heal up and recover as fast 😲
That's the problem with cheap garden hose- they skimp on the lawnmower repellent.
The first time my wife drove our new ZT, she sideswiped the well house, turning it 90* to the left! I told her she almost cost us $13K! That well is 300 ft deep, and if the pump ended up in the bottom, it could get really expensive! She has learned how to run it now.