I + J mower

[Tom Coughlin]

I am wondering if anyone has any experience with the new trailer mower. I am looking at the trailer mower and the pto forecart ,I am thinking if i go that route instead of the straight g.d. mower i can also upgrade to a rotary tedder with the pto forecart ,that seems to me to be the biggest bang for my buck so to speak . any thoughts /suggestions .

[Michael Low]

I won’t post other peoples numbers online, but I do have a contact with someone who has great experience with mowing machines and this trailer gear now too.

Give me a call, evenings west coast time, I can pass along the contact.
five 0 nine- 364-three three 3 eight

Michael Low

[Donn Hewes]

Tom, I think the I & j mowers are fantastic. I think they did a great job of taking the basic cutting system and adapting it to different mowers; motorized, PTO trailer, and horse drawn. The only question I have is how to pay for it. Having said that, if a person really was in the hay business I think the horse drawn version would lay out more hay than the trailer version, unless it was two horses versus three on the PTO cart. I do think the home made PTO cart is with reach of most people. Mine was easy to build. The trick is to find the right tractor to start with.

[Tom Coughlin]

Ok, so what is the trick . first i know nothing about tractors so bear with me . what makes a right tractor for conversion is it, make , model, era or just the type of tranny -pto-clutch set up. I would love to make my own forecart. Tom

[LongViewFarm]

Tom, maybe we can find two such tractors and tackle the PTO cart challenge at the same time.

[LongViewFarm]

That is the problem. I don’t really know vintage tractors either. First I would try and be as specific as you can about what you hope to use it with. I have said for a long time the secret to a Ground drive PTO cart is matching the weight of the cart with the desire task. Too light and it will skid (not work when you want it) and too heavy and you need extra horses.

I also think there are a lot of tractor makes and models to chose from and many have not been made into a PTO cart yet. Here is my guess on how to go about choosing. I think you are looking for a tractor from the late 40’s or 50’s. In this era most of the PTO and tranny set up would have been simple enough. The next thing to look at is the overall size and weight of the tractor. This will determine the final size and weight of the cart.

The Case B PTO cart that have works great, I have used it for about three years now. I use it with three horses and it is probably 500 pounds heavier than it needs to be to run my tedder. Here is a utube video.

[Will Stephens]

Has anyone here tried the making a ground drive cart with a car/truck axle? Flip the differential backward and use drive shaft for a pto shaft. I would guess an advantage of the tractor platform is that you have the transmission to be able to change pto speed/torque. Truck axle seams lighter and more straightforward construction. I have no experience with either but it is on my someday list to try making an axle version.
As for tractors, ford N9’s seem to be plentiful, cheep, and simple.

[Livewater Farm]

the pto cart that I have is made with a rear end from an old ford fiesta the gear ratio is perfect for a 3mph walk
Bill

[carl ny]

Will;
I love my old Ford tractors but I personally don’t think they would be the best for a ground drive cart. To much extra baggage. If I remember right I think that Muleman Donn made his with a A-C wd, he uses three horses on it,I think. If you wanted a lighter one I would think that a A-C b, c or ca might work good.JMHO Also you were talking about a truck rear end. I have been tossing around the idea of a cart with a “two speed truck rear end”. Any feed back would be welcome…

Carl nny

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