leaves blew away from mower deck

[Wayne Offiler]

I was having the same problem that several others mentioned: when mowing into leaves to mulch them, some would blow away from the deck, because of the wind produced by the blades.
What has worked well for me, was to remove 2 spacers from the spindles, bring the blades (double, of course) up higher into he deck. No spacers now. Less wind blows out under the deck; the mulching is better than ever, and the cut is fine. Deck is about 5" deep, and the blades are now 1 1/4" above the bottom of the deck.
Anyone else discover a better way or a "trick" that may benefit us?

[Runner]

Are you talking about WITH mulching kits? (or atleast the discharge chute closed?)

[65hoss]

I slow the engine speed down just a little and it has kept the leaves from blowing while using my ultra vac system.

[Cutter1]

I had double blades on my laser with my ultra vac. Wasn't working!!! Had to sacrifice, took off the double blades and just put high lifts on. Too much air flow with the double blades.

[John DiMartino]

I get some blow out with my DC too,when using the trac-vac on really dry leaves,I am now using double gators.Im going to remove a set and see if it helps.

[BRL]

I have found that using one regular blade under a gator blade is working well on the leaves. My theory is the regular blade is providing the right vacuum to get the leaves into the deck and the gator pulverizes them. (I was using double gators up until the leaves were not vacuuming well) One other thing to check: make sure the mower deck has a slight pitch forward (positive pitch) instead of level or backward (negative pitch). The mower decks are designed to vacuum best with a positive pitch.

[Acute Cut]

thanks for the info BRL. I did not know that.

[yardsmith]

same here-
I have to idle down when using my Trac Vac to about 30-40% throttle to keep the leaves from going all over.
Another trick to maximizing piles of leaves is to take vac chute off, mow & discharge leaves 3-4 times until they're chopped up, then put vac attachment back on & suck em up.
Gets alot more into the barrel/bag.

[lawnboy11]

Yeah, thanks for info BRL, I'll have to make sure my JD 36" deck has positive pitch as well.

[jaybee]

I have great success mulching leaves by using reverse more than forward. The leaves seem to be pulled into the mower much easier. Keep the windrow to the left of the machine and only take half a deck width at a time and back up. Works great even without a mulching kit.

[Runner]

Jaybee, That's VERY true regarding backing up and muching. Sometimes, when the leaves are too deep to go over even with the deck all the way up, the mower tends to "plow" them into a deeper pile. At this point, when it gets a few feet tall, I just back up, go around to the right of them, and back over them. It must be the back of the mower knocking them down that contributes to the helping of this. This is the first year I'm doing leaves with a ZTR, so I'm still experimenting a little. :)

[Wayne Offiler]

Runner:
To answer your original question; the mower does have a mulching kit, that is, 5 deflectors. I gave up using the cover for the discharge shute long ago. It often left a trail of mulched clippings along the right edge. Now I just let 'er blow; sometimes going over the leaves twice, criss, cross.

[Richard Martin]

If anyone is interested I have come up with a baffle that virtually eliminates leaf blowout. There will still be blowout when going over hard surfaces but it works very well on grass. I was going to patent it and sell it but here it is for free. Enjoy.

P.S. It leaves incredible stripes.

1: You will need access to a sheet metal brake to make a nice one or you can bend it in a door frame.

2: You will need a roll of coil stock (flashing). This can be purchased anywhere building supplies are sold. The heavier the better.

3: Measure the distance between the front caster mounts on your mower deck.

4: Subtract 1" from this measurement (for play).

5: Cut a piece of coil stock to this length.

6: Now you need to bend your coil stock. Click here to download a drawing of the bends. http://users.aol.com/rmartin631/baffle/

7: The distance the baffle extends under the deck should be to the tips of the blades.

8: You can either bolt the baffle to the deck or you can use Velcro. Tape does not hold long. The baffle mounts between the caster mounts (duh).





[Edited by Richard Martin on 10-28-2000 at 10:24 AM]

[John DiMartino]

Thanks for the tip,Richard.My blowout is from right in front of discharge spindle,outside of the castor.talking with other DC owners,it seems like it is noy just mine.I extended the front flap down,that got rid of 90% of the blowout between the spindles.It only blows out there in thin grass/heavy leaves.

[DesertScaper]

Pretty simple solution to corral dry, light leaves with your mower.
Just run the sprinklers or use a hose to wet them down a little bit. :o :o