Scag Turf Runner help

[Scooby1]

I am a farmer from England and landed on this site almost by accident but glad I did. I have about 1.5 acres of lawn around my house that I cut with a Scag Turf Runner. I bought it from a collective sale for £1750 GBP with 167 hrs on the clock in as new condition. Now I like the machine (20 hp Kohler - but petrol is very pricey in UK) but I have 2 worries. The aluminium gearbox was very noisy and I managed to get a cast gearbox from the importer but they were not very helpful and I got the impression that the TR was a bit of dud.

Also it hates wet/mushy/grass and clover. It just builds up round the inside of the hood (48") then dumps it in lumps. It does quite a good job in very dry conditions.

My main question is can I modify the blades ? At the moment they seem to have a cutaway section on the lifting part just above the sharp edge and I fell that if I modified them that so that it gave the grass a better whack into the blower it might stop it collecting so much round the hood.

All comments gratefully appreciated and TIA - Scooby1

[Lawn Sharks]

It sounds like you have mulching blades. I would switch them to straight hi-lift blades for a little extra push to get it to the blower.

Hope this helps!

[Scooby1]

Thanks for this Keth. If you go to page 3 of this forum you will find piccies on the "Scag Blades" thread that I posted in response to another helpful guy in the US. It may just be that I have worn out my blades (300 ish hours). I do not use the machine for ploughing or any other sort of cultivating !!!

I'm still concerned about the gearbox though.

Best wishes from the U.K. - Scooby1

[Lawn Sharks]

How often do you sharpen the blades? I sharpen mine twice a week typically. Make sure they are sharp as a knife and try the hi lifts.

Best of luck.

[Scooby1]

Cheers Keth.

Probably don't sharpen blades as much as I should but a bit of a fiddle on a STR. I am told that the grass is much different in the U.K. than it is in the US. We are currently having a very wet summer and consequently the grass is always lush and very often wet.

There is usually a lot of clover in U.K. lawns and the STR don't like that. Not one bit it don't.

Tooooodleooo - Scooby1