Toro 580D - pushing the limits

After a brief hiatus,

looks like I can finally write again!

The mowing season is starting.

Night temps are in the 40's,

so grass is growing,

however the ground is a bit wet.

Mowing is like mud bogging and off-roading.

This Toro 580D is a 4wd unit,

with monster front tires,

one of the few capable machines for this.

This bank runs alongside the entrance.

It's got a good slope,

which the mower travels on sideways.

I tried to cut to the top,

but the 5000 lb mower didn't like it.

The grass was tall enough to bog the engine,

then with both wings down,

the left tire started digging in.

Holey Chit!!

Not good to be stuck up there!

Lifting the left wing gave some traction,

but turned the body slightly up the hill.

Not a good feeling!

On a bank you're not sposta go in reverse,

but there weren't too many options.

Backing up straightened the machine out,

but the 4wd only plowed forward a little bit,

until the tires lost their grip,

and the back end started sliding down the hill!

Holey Double Chit!!

It was like slow motion.

Somehow I balanced the wings,

and maneuvered down the slope.

It was crazy but fun.

No soiling of the pants!

I checked the machine,

then continued on like nothing happened...

The dirt scar will be there for a while!

So far I've been stuck 3x this year,

bringing my grand total to 12,

which means a couple dozen close calls.

Now I should know not get too close to downhill fences,

and I should know when there's a mud bog.

The problem is trying to get that last tuft of tall grass.

It's like the bait of a quicksand trap.

Fortunately getting winched out is part of the job!

This one was technically in December,

in a spot on the border of our responsibility line.

I was going round and round,

closer to this sharp incline,

and got too cocky.

Whabamp!!

I thought "speed" or momentum would get me through,

but all it did was jack the front wheels above the dirt.

Good times!!

TP

A day in the life... Leaf Battle

In this late fall season there is a battle,

a consistent yet finite barrage of falling leaves.

The ground crew is hindered 

by the suffocated grass they try to protect,

as the ground is too soft for faster but heavier equipment.

Ruts are bad.

Here the tools of choice are backpack blowers,

rakes,

and possibly these gas powered side blowers.

Funny thing is all three were broken.

Bad head gasket on #1,

bad exhaust manifold/muffler on #2,

and a coil on #3.

The coil was easy,

I just swapped one from the bad head gasket donor.

The guys were all over it,

justifying the fix of the other two.

The replacement exhaust manifold had a screw on outlet,

but nothing to screw in.

I raided the scrap pile for tubes and pipe fittings,

and welded up a custom muffler.

All that practice with hot rods, boats,

motorized bikes and scooters...

The new silencer worked perfectly,

quieter than most of our engine tools here.

The first day went well,

other than the mini front roller digging into the soft grass.

No problem.

Some quick brackets and a fat roller wheel...

Zip zip with a welder and voila!

Now get out of here and start blowing leaves...

There are acres of leaves...

To pick them up.

there's a Toro Rake-O-Vac,

basically a trailer vacuum/rake,

that hadn't worked in a couple years.

New battery,

an overpriced coil,

and this was good to go.

It works great on unpiled leaves.

Well...

One of the guys pulled a full load to the compost area,

hit a whoop-de-doo in the road,

that opened up the trap door,

spilling a compacted pile that took 2 hours to clean.

Now nobody wants to use it!

Then they dug up this thing,

a stadium vacuum,

previously attached to a broken buggy.

It worked great til the hose broke for the umpteenth time.

The fallback is the good old pitchfork.

Manual labor at its finest.

Scoop by scoop...

the leaves slowly disappear.

Until one of the trucks takes a chit.

A busted starter allowed the fix of a lingering oil leak,

probably the rear main seal.

This meant tearing out the transmission,

fun on a 4x4 with a transfer case.

Years ago work had traded a local junkyard a broken vehicle,

for this ford ranger which had a bad transmission,

along with a replacement.

The previous mechanics got it running,

but cranked every bolt so tight they were barely able to unthread.

The exhaust wouldn't come off without breaking a bolt.

To make room I cut and hammered the welded seam lip,

visible on the top there.

While I did technical stuff 

like cut out a hard to find gasket...

The outside guys laid around.

It wasn't much fun putting this together,

but there was success getting it running.

Time for something fun.

I found a scrap bumper in a metal pile.

It was set aside for this truck,

but nobody could cut and weld here.

Some crude bracketry...

Cut cut Zip zip...

Now we could push gates open,

and move trash cans around.

Didn't take long to get it back to work.

Seriously there are tons of leaves here.

They'll get composted into the mulch pile,

and eventually returned back to the earth.

I still need to get the 3rd blower working,

too late for this season.

At least everything is green again!

TP

A day in the life... Toro 322 trim mower

Winter means going through

all the machines.

This is the one chance a year 

to get these reliable for next season.

This antique is a crucial part of fighting 

the weeds and grass,

specifically in the spots between the trees.

Sometimes the trees win.

You'd think a 1990 toro 322d,

almost 30 years old,

would be babied to last this long.

No.

The toro's are built strong but not too strong,

otherwise they'd never get replaced.

Interestingly there are 3 evolutions of this machine,

each seems to be made weaker than the other.

Luckily I'll take any excuse 

to get some cutting and welding in...

The scrap pile donated the perfect metal,

some 3/16" plate and fat rebar.

Way thicker then what these are built with.

There's a risk of making it too strong,

as somethings gotta give.

Well that'll give me or the next guy

something to do!

Looks like a beefy boat repair.

Good enough for years of thrash time.

This was the weak link,

the bracket that holds up the cutting deck.

Not even an inch thick spatter weld could hold it together.

Sometimes welding practice is better on scrap,

not something holding 3 rotating knives.

Probably why I fit in here.

After some grinding the crack was revealed.

Zip zip and as strong as new.

Now let's see how the guys trash this...

Besides going through the whole unit,

oil change, bearings and stuff,

a leaky hydraulic hose was also replaced.

That meant removing all the floorboard panels.

So yea this wasn't really a day in the life,

more like a couple days scattered over a week.

Now get to work guys no more excuses.

TP

mowin for $$

So part of this newish job is actually mowing grass.

Effin lotsa grass to mow!!

It would seem boring,

and at times it is,

mainly the wide expanses.

Fortunately there are only 3 of those parts.

Even then things happen that are like...

What the heck are those beaver bites?

They call that girdling the trees.

Or how about...

holey chit there's a bald eagle!!

Or holey chit there's 3 bald eagles

fighting over a Canadian goose body!!

Half the time mowing is basically a form 

of technical off-roading,

the Toro 580D is a 4WD crawler,

with acres of hills, berms, trees 

and other obstacles to navigate.

This part is called the east berm or bank,

a long gradual side slope,

that runs the entrance to the track.

This is where it gets tricky,

the side wing cutters act like outriggers

as well as weight distributors. 

The 3 black knobs control the hydraulics.

On a light left slope like this,

both sides are down all the way,

the lower deck pushing down as it keeps us upright,

uphill deck on reserve to go up for balance.

The knob control looks like this.

Thumb pushing down,

pointer on guard.

On a steeper right slope the position is reversed,

but the same.

Both decks down,

the 16' width really grabs the slope.

Here's the hand position,

right knob pushed down,

left on guard...

On guard for the steeper slope ahead!!

Here's where it's important to raise the uphill deck,

giving traction to the uphill wheels.

Even then there's a little bit of sliding involved.

The below pic was in the early days,

and looking back is a definite holey chit moment.

If you see the mow mark I overextended the downhill turn,

and had to raise the deck quickly

as the machine lost the traction to turn.

(Rear steer on a front heavy machine)

The Toro 580D doesn't handle well going straight downhill,

and with the guide wire in the way 

there's not much room for error.

I don't get that close anymore!!

Easier to send in guys with weedwackers...

Moving the sticks almost comes naturally,

and I'll give Chief credit,

with its 2-knob shifter system.

People always ask how hard is it to shift.

Muscle memory is powerful!

When slipping down the dirt hills,

it's surprising how automatic controlling the hydraulics becomes.

Months ago I showed how the frame actually broke,

now ya know how critical it is that it stays together!

The day before a big race,

one of the deck frames broke.

4100 hard working hours will create metal fatigue!

This is when the years of metalwork experience kicked in.

I finished an easy day job in a hard couple hours,

while race cars ran their practice laps.

Fat gussets and fish plates,

this will be stronger than new.

Since the grinder was out,

I sharpened a set of blades,

picking some donors from the junk pile.

Typically the outer blades get hammered by gravel and rocks,

so 7 out of 11 are good for a couple grinder edges.

There's a point where they all get pro sharpened,

but where's the fun in that?

The mower was all assembled 

just in time for the spectators to pile in.

The east berm grass died off in the summer!

The flatter areas kept a little green,

although it was more a mix of random weeds 

rather than blades of grass.

After racking up hours of mowing,

I still end up getting stuck.

This was my 8th time,

and first in a couple months.

The ground was so hard the mower just slid sideways like on ice,

then the skids hook into the fence.

Over the winter I'm going to round out the ends 

so they're not hooks.

Here's a huge change from San Diego.

It felt wrong hosing the machine down,

however the track has a well,

with an almost unlimited supply of water.

One of the perks of Oregon...

More soon!

TP