OT - Lawn Tractors & Small farm tractors

They were made by Roper. I have a '71 model ST 12. I replaced the engine about 10 years ago with an OHV 14 hp. I have the mowing deck apart now to repair some sheet metal. I would like to buy a new mower shell. Any idea if they are available still?

Our rural neighborhood has tractor races each Labor Day. Mine is undefeated three years running. Wheelie starts usually psych out the younger participants. The Powder Puffs are run with the "bulls" (husbands) in the trailer. With my 100# wife driving and my 245 in the rear of the trailer, which unloads the tractor, we can do ten foot "burnouts".

Reply to
Andy Asberry
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Nope not 100% true. If you buy a John Deere from a John Deere dealer and not from Home Depot, it will be a John Deere made unit. My understanding is that John Deere tried the cheaper home owner market and it didn't work out. I don't think they sell the MTD made units anymore. My John Deere riding mower is made 10 times better than a John Deere unit I found at Home Depot. Mine has a massive (well for a riding mower anyway) cast iron front axle on it, not one made from two pieces of stamped sheet metal riveted together.

Lane

Reply to
Lane

In the 10 years I've owned that machine, it has mowed 3.5 acres weekly (hired hand driving). In that time, one bearing in the mower deck has had to be replaced (obviously wasn't being greased by the hired hand). I also replaced the belts and the blades while I was at it, though they both had some life left. Other than that, it has been solid as a rock.

I can't say the same for the Toro piece of crap I have here, which has eaten 2 (expensive) belts and split a pulley in the 2 years I've owned it (won't keep the damn battery charged either). The Toro (Briggs) engine bogs on any bit of tall grass too. I can take the JD out into a pasture and cut there. No way the Toro could.

Grasshopper is a popular brand in the South, lower Midwest, and the Plains states. You see them everywhere in this part of the country. Grasshopper has been making these ZTR machines since 1970. They're very solidly built. The frames are heavy wall 3 and 4 inch square tubing, decks are welded up from heavy steel plate. No brittle castings or flimsy sheetmetal here. They use a real hydraulic motor drive system with Ross wheel motors and Hydrogear pumps. They use Vanguard or Kohler engines on the smaller mowers, Kubota gas or diesel engines on the larger machines. They're fully powder coated. Never seen one with any rust. Prices *start* at $5700 for their smallest model (which would do nicely for my mowing needs here), and go up from there.

Dixon has been around nearly as long, since 1974. Their machines are more oriented toward the homeowner than Grasshopper, smaller, with a fiberglass body shell over a tubing frame, but still good machines in their niche.

No hydraulics on these small machines. They use variable ratio belt drives to the wheels. A friend has one that's 15 years old, and still going strong on the original belts (!!!). It won't keep up with my John Deere, but it cost a lot less too, prices start at $2300 for the smallest Dixon, the Deere cost me right at $5000 10 years ago.

I think you might be surprised if you toured the Grasshopper plant. It is a modern 300,000 square foot facility with CAD/CAM, CNC machining centers, robotic welding cells, powder coat booths and ovens, etc. Dixon is a bit more mom and pop, but it is no shed either. Both are in Kansas.

Either one of them produce machines that are light years ahead of my Toro Wheel Horse. Hell, my 31 year old 8 hp Snapper is light years ahead of the 16 hp Toro in what it will ride over and cut, and in the abuse it has tolerated too.

I've seen Toro commercial turf equipment, and it is *much* better built than *my* Toro. OTOH, put one beside a Grasshopper and it looks downright flimsy. Grasshoppers are the Terex truck of the mowing business.

I've had enough of this crappy Toro, I'm going to buy the small Grasshopper that I should have bought in the first place.

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

A friend of mine bought a grasshopper from a dealers selling both Dixon's and Grasshoppers. The dealer told him that the Dixon wasn't even in the same category with the grasshopper. I was talking with a guy that used to do commercial mowing and he mentioned many top end commercial mowers (including Grasshopper) and said his favorite was the "Turf Tiger".

Here's a link I found searching for Turf Tiger.

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Reply to
Roger N

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