bush hogged today!

[terry274]

The axle nut that I have been waiting for came around 10:00 this morning. Got it on the axle and put the tractor back together, no major issues. Excited, I put the bush hog on her and began cutting grass. The grass was not high, I had cut it earlier in the summer with the Ferguson. Made a couple of rounds, changing engine RPM's and using different gears to get a feel for things. Everything was going great, the engine was purring, proofmeter was working, happiness abouned. Then the engine quit. Started looking and found that in my excitement to start using the tractor (this is the first work she has done since I bought her about a month ago) I had neglected to open the fuel tap. Looked at the clear plastic fuel pre-filter and saw it was half full of air. Pulled her back to the house with the Ferguson and began opening the purge bolts and cranking the engine. Found that the bolt in the main fuel filter housing where you purge the air has been stripped. Managed to get all the air out, she started then. Went back to cutting grass, after a few rounds the PTO lever jumped out of gear. Put it back and it stayed a while. But, as things warmed up she began to kick the lever out quite often. Got finished cutting about 2-3 acres and parked her in the shed. I will look at fixing the PTO shaft lever later, when I take the lift cover off to adjust the lift.
Terry

[Brian]

Check the PTO shaft for end float in and out. It may be that the circlip that holds the bearing in place has been force out by the wrong length of implement PTO shaft being used.