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54" Raptor SD Hills help? Turf tires?
- Thread starter bigdaddyr
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A couple of years ago we had a nice fella get killed on a John Deere zero-turn close by here. His kids bought him a brand new zero-turn for his retirement and the first time he used it he thought he could go down in the ditches like he had been with his lawn tractor.... rolled over and broke his neck.
I don't consider myself to be excessively stupid but I just don't get why a zero turn takes off so badly going downhill but can climb almost anything going forward.... and why the Zero Turns with automotive type steering seem to be able to do most anything much better than a stick unit.
I don't consider myself to be excessively stupid but I just don't get why a zero turn takes off so badly going downhill but can climb almost anything going forward.... and why the Zero Turns with automotive type steering seem to be able to do most anything much better than a stick unit.
..I just don't get why a zero turn takes off so badly going downhill but can climb almost anything going forward....
drive wheel location, weight location, and weight transfer.
Facing uphill, going uphill, nearly all the machine weight is trying to push the driven tread into the slope, the front wheels have very little weight on them.
Facing downhill, going downhill, the opposite... machine weight is on the front tires, and they roll freely, trying to drag the rear tires away and down the slope.
Most steering wheel machines actually have steered front wheels, rack and pinion and all, mostly like a regular tractor, allowing them to hold angle and keep the machine on your intended path, the hydros are slaved off that steering linkage. on a two-stick machine as we all know they are just castors and cannot help with directional stability....and why the Zero Turns with automotive type steering seem to be able to do most anything much better than a stick unit.
Bummer man
Glad there is not any serious injury
thanks all, she got a big nasty bruise on her leg and now i had to buy a push mower for the area near that ditch. I have noticed the slide on hills as well and it would have been me if I had been the first one of us to use it that day. Otherwise great mowers. We both mowed with a scag that we had on another property but that place has no hills.....would never have thought it...Would highly suggest that everyone be trained prior to using one of these.