Grandpa (Case 195) gets a turn cutting Grass

[RoamingGnome]

Decided to give "Grandpa" a turn at cutting the weeds in the backyard down to size earlier this week... It's a big backyard for the city, but small compared to what y'all are cutting out in the country. Too small actually for Garden Tractor and the terrain is too rough, too many lumps and bumps around the roots of our pair of 120 yr old Black Walnut trees. I started off by cutting the borders with the cordless mower (Black and Decker 36V - been going strong for almost 20yrs) after most of the rough stuff was done I took Grandpa's cover off and started him up...

(Cover is an ATV cover from Princess Auto with a few extra grommets added - Good thing for the cover - Birds have been doing target practice)

I'm still impressed how easily it starts for a 55 yr old tractor. I was a little surprised at how much the RPM's dropped when the clutch was engaged but there was lots of power when the RPM's were bumped up a little. Decided to cut in back and forth pattern rather than the usual Zamboni race to the centre of the yard I'd do with the push mower.

This way I could go parallel to some of the ridges in the ground. Discovered a couple of things (This was the first time I've cut grass with Grandpa) - The lever for raising and lowering the deck wasn't working properly and wouldn't latch into the "raised" position - figured I would cut some grass and look at it afterwards. I was impressed at how close it was cutting, my pile of weeds was almost putting green level... that's when I realized that the mower deck height adjustment wasn't working and it was basically riding right down on the rollers - good on a golf green, not so good on my lumpy bumpy yard.
Selectively scalped the lawn in many places, fortunately I'm not too worried, weeds grow back quick enough with a couple of rainy days.

Discovered a few more things about the deck, but I'll write another story just for the deck adjustments/repairs.

[Eugen]

By all means this was a success!

[RoamingGnome]

By all means this was a success!

Yes @Eugen a success! And still really happy I convinced that I needed one more Case garden tractor - so far it seems the 3rd time was a charm

[propane1]

Good looking cut Gerry

Noel

[RoamingGnome]

Thanks Noel, can't wait to finish the couple of little adjustments and then get the 195 up north to the property...

[JSinMO]

Decided to give "Grandpa" a turn at cutting the weeds in the backyard down to size earlier this week... It's a big backyard for the city, but small compared to what y'all are cutting out in the country. Too small actually for Garden Tractor and the terrain is too rough, too many lumps and bumps around the roots of our pair of 120 yr old Black Walnut trees. :

That reminds of when we had a house in town. I kept our Farmall cub at the house. Way too big for the yard!
I would move a path across the yard and have to back up and make another pass, not enough room to turn around at the end of the yard
The neighbors would look at me funny but I didn’t care!

[Eugen]

Great picture @JSinMO !

[RoamingGnome]

Decided to give "Grandpa" a turn at cutting the weeds in the backyard down to size earlier this week... It's a big backyard for the city, but small compared to what y'all are cutting out in the country. Too small actually for Garden Tractor and the terrain is too rough, too many lumps and bumps around the roots of our pair of 120 yr old Black Walnut trees. :

That reminds of when we had a house in town. I kept our Farmall cub at the house. Way too big for the yard!
I would move a path across the yard and have to back up and make another pass, not enough room to turn around at the end of the yard
The neighbors would look at me funny but I didn’t care!IMG_0977.jpeg

Awesome photo @JSinMO That is exactly the way I felt cutting the grass with the 195, I started out doing laps around the yard but kept scalping the lawn when I tried to turn corners near the tree roots. Ended up just going back and forth in straight lines - wasn't too bad - took less than 10 minutes to cut the centre of the yard. It takes about an hour to do the whole thing with the cordless mower.