Clamshell Bagger Issues

hamlin6

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Hello, I am brand new to the forum. Thanks for having me.
Last summer I purchased a new Cheetah II with a 61" deck. It has the the 37hp Briggs engine. Overall I love this mower. with the limited number of hours I have on it, I can't think of a single thing I would change. I would rate it an A+.

I also own the clamshell bagger. That is a different story. I would rate it a D/D-. I've had nothing but issues with it. The the elastic strap that connects the adaptor to the blower deck simply does not have enough strength to hold the adaptor in place. I have to stretch it to the handle in order to keep the adaptor from sagging and giving me a grass clipping shower.
Even more troubling is the door and hopper area. There's at leas a 1/4th inch gap between the hopper and the door. This causes a continuous stream of grass to blowing around until enough grass clogs up the gaps. Finally the latch that holds the door closed does not operate consistently. You can close the handle forcefully only to find that the latch hasn't caught the pins of the hopper.

I had the dealer perform the initial assembly and install. I've gone back and doublechecked everything and I cannot see that anything is put together incorrectly.

Does anyone else own this bagger? If so do you have a similar experience? Any suggestions or pointers are appreciated.
 

Rivets

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I myself and I suspect many others on this forum are going to need your help before we can try to provide you with help. COVID-19 is reeking havoc with our ESP powers. Remember we are not standing next to you with a strong drink in hand to see what you have are exactly what you are dealing with. Can you you supply us with model and serial numbers for both the Cheetah and the Clamshell? Even more helpful would be pictures of how everything is assembled and closeups of the problem areas. Once we have a better idea of what you have, we should be able to provide you with possible solutions.
 

hamlin6

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Rivets,
Thanks for the reply. Cheetah II is the model name. The clamshell bagger is the model name of the bagger. Both are Scag products. I can post up pictures at a later date. Basically I was just wondering if anyone else has experienced issues with the bagger. It's very expensive and I expected it to perform better than it does.
 

sgkent

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I looked at a you tube video of a guy who has one mowing his property. His seemed to work fine, there was a blower motor on the side that pulled the clippings up and pushed them into the bagger via a tube. To dump he backed up and pulled a rod that dumped it. It looked like the back door had a little gap but he wasn't getting showered with clippings or anything.
 

hamlin6

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I looked at a you tube video of a guy who has one mowing his property. His seemed to work fine, there was a blower motor on the side that pulled the clippings up and pushed them into the bagger via a tube. To dump he backed up and pulled a rod that dumped it. It looked like the back door had a little gap but he wasn't getting showered with clippings or anything.
Yep, that's the model I have. It works just like that. I've reached out to a couple lawncare pro's who have YouTube channels and also own the bagger. Some people have zero issues with them while others have mixed feelings. Before this setup, I had an old Sears YT300 with a rear soft sided bagger. It didn't have the aux blower or anything fancy. It pretty much just worked. For the price I paid for the clamshell I hoped to have an even better experience than the old Sears. This isn't the case.
 

hamlin6

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Just a follow up to my original post. As I stated earlier, the bagger was assembled at the dealer. I do remember talking with the tech who assembled it. Going by his age he wasn’t inexperienced but he did say this was the first clamshell bagger he’d assembled.
So I decided to remove all the moving parts and start over. There isn’t an assembly manual. Basically it’s just an illustrated parts breakdown. I took my time and learned a few things along the way. When it was all said and done I figured out some parts were installed incorrectly. Once I got it all dialed in, it work 100% better. While I still see areas for improvement, I don’t hate it like I did before.
 

Tigercat2-2022

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I
Just a follow up to my original post. As I stated earlier, the bagger was assembled at the dealer. I do remember talking with the tech who assembled it. Going by his age he wasn’t inexperienced but he did say this was the first clamshell bagger he’d assembled.
So I decided to remove all the moving parts and start over. There isn’t an assembly manual. Basically it’s just an illustrated parts breakdown. I took my time and learned a few things along the way. When it was all said and done I figured out some parts were installed incorrectly. Once I got it all dialed in, it work 100% better. While I still see areas for improvement, I don’t hate it like I did before.
just got mine (also dealer assembled) not working great. Can you tell me what you adjusted / found that made a difference?
 

hamlin6

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I

just got mine (also dealer assembled) not working great. Can you tell me what you adjusted / found that made a difference?
Hey there. There were a few things I did that improved the experience with it.
First, there are four connecting rods, upper and lower on either side. These rods are adjustable to be able to close the door and also make it seal better. Mine was initially just adjusted so I could close the door but that was it. There's nothing in the owner's manual that tells you anything about them so it's a bit of trial and error.
Also, the hinge for the door wasn't adjusted properly. There is a bit of play in the mounting holes in the upper half of the hinge. I tweaked it to make it more centered.
There are two mounting bolts with big steel bushings. This is where the bagger actually rests. They kept coming loose. So I applied thread locker to the threads and basically all the threads everywhere on the thing to prevent things from getting loose again. Even the knob on the handle was getting loose.
When the dealer installed it, they installed it so that the black elastic strap that connected the tube to the deck discharge so that the strap was facing out. I remounted it so that the strap is on the top. This helps to prevent the end from constantly sagging. Finally, I noticed that the tube wasn't slid in all the way that it could be on the upper connection. There was a significant arc in the tube before I found this. Sliding the tube up as far as it would go took reduced the arc.

Even with the connecting arms as dialed in as I can get them when closing the door I really have to "send it home" when closing the door. In other words, takes a good amount of rapid force so that the catches on the door take hold.

One other thing I haven't found a good way to correct. I still have to wrap a bungee strap in front of the handle to keep it closed. Otherwise, when I hit a good bump it will jar the door open. There doesn't appear to be enough pressure in the clamp thing that is supposed to hold the handle in place. I do have a very bumpy/rough property so maybe that's part of it. I'd like to figure out how to design a latch to hold the handle in place. But I haven't gotten that far.

Overall with all the adjustments I made the bagger works better. There are some fundamental design issues in my opinion. But I'm not in the bagger manufacturing business so I'm really just armchair quarterbacking. I just believe that for the money that thing costs I was expecting more.

I hope this helps. If you find anything that improves your experience I'd love to know so I can apply it also.
 
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