She tends to run warm but not hot normally on the topper, the needle gets up to the 175 mark on the dial and stays there. Today I tried an experiment.
This is my topper, just a little less than 5'
and this is the crop I was cutting,
Ann and I are building a wild flower meadow from an old meadow that was over grazed and "poached" by cattle's hooves. We are slowly clearing a major dock infestation and are building up quite a selection of wild grasses, cowslips, primroses, rhododendrons etc. We tend to let the grasses grow and seed before cutting down. To date we have used the topper but this year we are going to get a few bales off it with any luck.
Dotty went into the edges of the crop to cut a roadway for us to walk around.
In second gear she went very well and would even take it in third. The temperature usually goes up fairly quickly using the topper but this time I borrowed Henrietta's pressure radiator cap instead of the standard Dexta none pressurised one. The temperature staid in the yellow area of the dial.
Fueled with this convincing finding I decided to really push the boundaries. I needed my pumpkin patch rotovated, a job normally for Nuffy. The land has been ploughed and levelled down but has a good covering of wild garlic which is a bit of a pain.
I hitched Dotty onto the E60 which is a fair load for Nuffy and I changed the gearing on the rotovator to the low gear I use with Henrietta.
Nuffy's gears, Big gear driving small gear - high rotor speed -saps power.
Henrietta's gears. Both the same - slower rotor speed - works better for lower HP.
Dotty handled it but it was too much of a load for her and the temperature rose up to the 175 point. It held there but the wide rotovator was not good for her. It did clear her out though and the governor got a fair bit of work. I will not be trying it again though.
She would handle a n E50 or one of the smaller ones without a problem.
Another improvement to her cooling system would be a fan shroud. Dotty's was taken off for some reason, in New Zealand. I shall certainly be getting a pressurised cap for her once I can find one of far better quality than is being offered at the moment.
