wrote:
Gary...

If you're going to subject your mower to falling limbs, fence rails,
and mowing over roots that will get hit by as blade 3½" off the
ground, I don't know you should've bought any homeowner mower that
I've seen. I've looked at Hondas, Deere, Cub Cadet, and quite a few
others this week, and generally speaking, if you're spending under
$600 the build quality seems to be pretty much the same, and there's
plenty of plastic parts being used on all brands.

You might want to sell that Cub Cadet and spring for a $1200
commercial mower with an aluminum or magnesium deck and a direct-drive
system. If you need it to be self-propelled, other than a Skag-Sulky
type, I don't know if there's a good self-propelled commercial 21" cut
mower.

The first thing you might want to do though is walk around your
property with a double-action pruner and cut out any roots sticking
above the ground. If they are too big to cut without damaging the
tree/shrub (?) than why not do a little grading? Having roots popping
up that high in your lawn would not only look pretty ugly, but it
sounds like someone could trip and break a leg!

The roots aren't generally out in the open where people would usually
walk, they're under trees with low limbs that you have to duck under, or
don't even go under at all (for some, I push the mower under, but don't
walk there). Some of them could be cut away with a pruner (I suppose
I've been lazy by not doing that), but many are just the upper part of
larger diameter roots. These could be buried by adding a few inches of
fill, or cut away with a chain saw (difficult to do without running the
saw into the dirt) or maybe cut with an axe (also not good for the axe),
or ground out by a stump grinder (not sure if this would harm the tree).
The fence I spoke about is a rail fence that's just a bit too low for
the mower to fit under. And some of my shrubs overhang the lawn where
they hit the mower if I try to mow too close to them. I think the
better answer may be to do more of those areas with a string trimmer and
just use the mower out in the open. My old Snapper, though, never
suffered damage from the roots etc. (which I don't hit that often, most
of them are lower than the blade), but I did have the side-mounted spark
plug wire on my old mower pulled loose on occasion by the shrubs.


I was over a friend's house yesterday morning and watched him mow his
lawn with his John Deere. He has the JS63C (I believe) which is a
3-speed self-propelled with caster wheels on the front. He bought it
at the BORG for around $400 because it was the last one and they
decided not to carry Deere walk-behinds any longer. It's pretty
similar to the caster-wheeled Honda and Cub Cadet models I saw at HD
and Lowes. After wheeling the thing around myself, I found the
casters to be pretty neat around shrub beds. You do have a little
learning curve with the turns though as you really have to push the
handle sideways to use those casters to their fullest. I like a
caster mower, even though it takes up another 10" of length it seems.


I'm sure the casters have their benefits, but I was afraid they'd snag
on those overhanging shrubs I mow next to, and I also thought they'd
make the mower more difficult to keep on a straight line on a sidehill
(which I have).

FWIW, ePinions has some pretty positive reviews on the SRC621 Cub
Cadet. Didn't see one complaint about the oil drain issue though I'm
sure you're right. I guess a lot of people are just dropping them off
at the lawn shop and having them serviced, although I wondered if you
could simply cut a hole in the plastic right where the drain plug is
and make it that much easier to get at it?


Just cutting a hole in the plastic baffle plate won't help the oil drain
situation, because both the plasic baffle plate and the metal bracket
for the wheel drive belt above it are in the way. I think a pump like
this may be the best solution:
http://www.jackssmallengines.com/oil-pump.cfm
Dropping it off just for an oil change isn't convenient, the mower
doesn't fit well in my car. It's easier to just change it myself.

Mike



Gary