Henry Rifle Forums

This is the rest of my "fleet" out behind the barn. All gathered in one place at least. These are as big as mine need to be.

Nice line-up Dave. Love it when the whole family gathers for a picture.

dave77 wrote: ↑

Sat May 01, 2021 2:32 pm

My Craftsman does fine for lawn mowing and towing my little trailer around, wish it had a little more power, have to go really slow when I occasionally mow the pasture.

Problem is with snow plowing, just have a small hand lifted snow plow. It will move a surprising amount of snow, sometimes the first pass can take awhile if the snow is deep. Issue is when you are mounding the snow pile and have a fair amount of pressure on the blade the shift lever takes quite a bit of force to get it out of forward so a true hydro-static transmission would be nice.

Decided to upgrade to a more powerful and hydro-static tractor, was debating getting one of the S-model John Deere's at Lowes but wanted a better transmission and don't like the new Easy-Change oil filters. Can't afford a X-model and also the nearest John Deere place is around 60 miles away.

Decided to get this Cub Cadet, $2699. Has a Tuff Torq K46 transmission which is a step above the TLT200 transmission on the JD S120, also has a fabricated deck and a much nicer seat. Steers a whole lot easier (and tighter turning radius) and feels like it's about 3 times faster on pavement than the Craftsman for when I go up the road to work on the irrigation. Also have a local Cub Cadet dealer/authorized service place.

Will be about another $600 for a snow plow, rear weights and chains. Next door neighbor is interested in buying my Craftsman for $400.

My little grass eater is not keeping up on the pasture. She is doing OK with the loss of her brother but is lonely, wants a lot more attention from me and my friend. Planing on getting her a companion which will help some on the pasture upkeep.

nice looking Cub ... we have an older model that is used for mowing our 2+ acres .... only issue is if you don't crank it for a few days something will pull down the battery .... we keep a trickle charger hooked to it and with that, no problems

I bought a Cub from my neighbor last year to mow my tree area’s with. It is an LT42 Home Depot model with the single cylinder Kohler motor. He bought it to do the same as me but didn’t like it. Sold it to me with 13 hours for $900 including the extended warranty he paid for. It is a side discharge and it shoots out the cuttings with great velocity. This is probably why he didn’t like it. I put a mulch kit on it which keeps the cuttings under the mower deck and that helped a bunch. Mowing where I do there are considerable wood chips from a thinning project I did several years ago and with the side discharge the chips and other projectiles travel a long ways. No problem with the mulching set up. Like Dave said, the steering is really nice.

Huge difference between the single cylinder Kohler and the twin cylinder John Deere I use for my lawn. That single will shake your fillings loose.

Mine has the Kawasaki V-Twin, very smooth and quiet compared to my old Craftsman. It does shoot the clippings out a lot further. Thinking about a mulching kit for the lawn but not sure how well it would work for mowing the pasture, I will be letting it get longer than the lawn. Maybe the mulching blades would be OK if I put the side discharge back on when mowing the pasture?

The mulch kit I bought (Cub Cadet brand) is pretty clever. The cover plate for the side discharge outlet is held on by a large plastic thumb screw type fastener. A simple twist of it and the plate comes off. Probably for cleaning at least that’s what I use it for but I would imagine one could remove it and get some benefit of the side discharge. Of course it would be better to put the chute back on but that would be more involved.

My John Deere has the Kawasaki motor and as you said, very smooth and quiet. The Cub is a rattle trap in comparison but it gets the job done just fine!

All ready for winter weather duty.

Yup!! Sure looks like you're well prepared Dave.

very nice .... looking forward to seeing pictures of it in action and your comments after working with it