Friday, November 15, 2013

Winterwork GKIV and PGM's


 Got the go ahead to start on my winter maintenance . The New Course has blown out their irrigation and are scheduled to close on or before November 11th. With the coming rain it should slow rounds down to a crawl . Our irrigation is next to get blown out on Monday November 4th.We had a good 4-5 frosts this week and the grass has pretty much stopped growing . We will most likely mow the greens and Tees  again . The rough units will be going out a few more times to mostly to munch leaves for the blower to spread out . New budgets starting up and I'm starting off with our approach mower . I have torn it down pretty good to get at a few areas that I have been putting off till now .
Most of the panels /seat /and fuel tank has been removed for easier access . I had a line under the seat that I've been keeping an eye on . Was easy to replace on site with the hydraulic supplies in the shop .
Bio oil has been drained out . We're having a few issues with the front reels swinging around to much . I'm going to shim under the pull frames so they won't be able to swing as much . One pull frame will need a little attention to get the clippings to go in the basket better. A little oxy / acetylene will take care of that.

The transport lever needs to be extended a bit to make it work every time instead of randomly . Also a new light switch .Fuel lines are looking a little weak and now would be a good time to replace while it's all apart . If we get another set of reels for our 3150 Toro greens master we plan to use it for approaches while we are mow with the flexes during the summer . This GK we will use to mow after top dress but keep one set of reels set up for approaches as a back up . This way the other older GK IV can be sold . If it's approved it will be nice to use the 3150 Toro all the time instead of it sitting in cold storage for half the season . Picked up the items I need at Eastern Turf today and should have most of it back together tomorrow . Then I'll get the reels ready to grind .


 For winter work I like to get all the grinding on reel type mowers done first . They are the most time consuming to do . While the reels are grinding I'm working on the mower . That way I can move back and forth getting both jobs done at the same time .

A few more weeks and it will be time to get the snow gear hauled up to the front of the shop and check them over . I think where going to get the white stuff early .

I had finished of my GK a few days after the last post .

Instead of getting some custom piping bent I decided to take everything apart and open up the exhaust pipe going into the home made pipe . There was enough flow that it wasn't getting to sooty. I did weld the exhaust together and pipe clamped it to the OEM one .  
Also added another support bracket and now is fairly quite for a diesel GK.
also added an exhaust cap in case the guys leave it out in the rain .
It's great to get a few pieces of equipment done early but sometimes the weather and later closures of the course may mean it could go out for a few more mows . You have to look at it as getting an early test run for next year and all the little bugs are getting worked out .
It has transport now do to the fact that one off the dash bolts was missing . Once replaced it gave the lever a little more movement .

My PGM's where up next a few of them couldn't be relief ground so new reels where in stock at Eastern Turf . I did the same process as an earlier post to install the new reels in 2 of our machine . 


Here are a couple of pictures of the difference .Also when replacing new reels replace any seal ,races (cups) and bearings (cones)while it's all apart.  .

 
Might have been able to just get away for another season by just spin grinding ( tee HOC )It's a fairly big job to just drop everything else to install them mid season where you need every minute for other things  . Yes they are still 11 blade reels the 9 blade ones I would have used for Tee HOC cost considerably more .Plus If we had to use one for  a spare or back up greens mower that option would be still open by just changing the bedknives to Tournament or low profile . The mower had been sped up a bit for this HOC and and 11 blade reel set up.


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