Cub Cadet with steering wheel

[SamB]

My wife has a lady friend that has a ztr that she just can't get the hang of controlling it with the twin levers. Her neighbor comes over and does the manly thing and mows her yard for her. She would like to do this herself and commented to my wife that she sure wished there was a ztr with a steering wheel.
Does the steering wheel Cub only turn the front(former caster) wheels? Open differential? No place here other than big box stores have Cub mowers, so no help there. Anyone with some experience with these mowers? TIA

 

[ILENGINE]

The steering wheel turns the front wheels but also controls modified input for direction both forward and backwards for the 2 Z turn style hydrostats. So basically turning the wheel hard to the right or left will put one of the hydro's in reverse for that Z turn pivot.

 

[Rivets]

I always instruct new Z-turn customers to position their hands so their thumbs are touching when in neutral. Moving straight, forward or reverse, means their hands are moving as one, turning means the hand opposite the direction you want to turn goes ahead of the other hand, thumbs no longer touching. Neighbor has a new Cub steering wheel model and has had no problem with it.

 

[StarTech]

Just a note here some of these steering wheel models has the wrong return to neutral springs on the hydros or at least the one my customer just recently purchased. He was complaining how much force was needed to keep the mower moving as his leg was giving out. When I looked the hydros on Hydro Gear they indicated 44 lb spring rate springs use but the Cub Cadet part IPL indicates 34 lb spring rate springs used. Changed them and I haven't heard any more complaints about his leg giving out. Otherwords on straight full forward speeds his was having to apply an additional 20 lbs of pressure on the hydros via the foot pedal.

 

[bertsmobile1]

For women I tell them to pretend the lap bars are a shopping trolley and move them the same way and amount that you would in a supermarket .
For men I tell them to only try & steer with one hand , whichever is their dominant side .
So for a right handed person they steer with the right and control the speed with the left .
It is all about muscle memory and after a while it becomes natural.
The problem most people have is always moving the levers to the limit of the travel and that turns the mower into a show jumping rodeo mount .

 

[StarTech]

It just takes time to learn. It like when I started driving automatic vehicles I found myself on numerous times trying to hit the clutch pedal when stopping but now it is like second nature to operate both manual and automatic vehicles.

What has to be overcome is the "I can't" attitude. They must be willing to learn something new. It like a guy saying "I can't cook an egg" because he has someone else that will do it for him. Yes they going to mess up a few times as long you learn from those mistakes is what counts.

 

[SamB]

Thanks for all this knowledge input. I believe she'd had the lever control mower for some time now, but still doesn't like it to the point of not using it. ILengine's post was what I was wondering about, with the drive wheels control input. As for me, Bertsmobile1's post fits me to a T. No thinking about what I'm doing, I just do/go where where I want with no "I need to do this to go there."

 

[Auto Doc's]

Some people are just accustomed to a steering wheel. They don't jerk an operator around like the lever models do.

I saved a Cub Cadet RZT-S 50" cut zero turn with a steering wheel last year. I had a blown engine. I replaced the engine with a spare that I had. The guy wanted to junk it, and I added it to my small fleet of mowers. They are nice machines.

The hydro motors are what actually steers it with input from the steering wheel and long linkage rods going back to the hydraulic drive motors.

The only problem I found later was one of the front steering bell cranks had loosened up a shoulder bolt and would bind. I removed the front footrest area and tightened everything back up and it has been good to go since.

 

[GearHead36]

Why not go with a lawn tractor? I have a Cub Cadet steering wheel ZTR. It's main advantage over lap-bar ZTR's is it's slope handling ability. Lap bar ZTR's don't work well on slopes. So since she has such a ZTR, I'm guessing her yard is fairly flat. If I were mowing nothing but flat areas, I would consider a lawn tractor. Unless she has lots of obstacles. The steering wheel CC's are almost as good at handling obstacles as lap-bar ZTR's.

 

[SamB]

It just takes time to learn. It like when I started driving automatic vehicles I found myself on numerous times trying to hit the clutch pedal when stopping but now it is like second nature to operate both manual and automatic vehicles.

What has to be overcome is the "I can't" attitude. They must be willing to learn something new. It like a guy saying "I can't cook an egg" because he has someone else that will do it for him. Yes they going to mess up a few times as long you learn from those mistakes is what counts.

I know , but she old and all. I can't tell her she just needs to learn to drive it. I know I'm a coward, but I'm keeping my head down! :-D