Will a tow behind leaf vacuum work w/59" woods

R

rick 48 cub

Well-known member
Happy almost fall!

My neighbor is selling his Agri-Fab leaf vacuum with 7hp gas motor that works with his John Deere(!) compact tractor. My woods is a three spindle belly mower that is open on right and left sides. I think my woods mostly discharges to the right. I am concerned that my woods is designed to discharge in every direction so this leaf vacuum would not work well. Maybe if I made a cover for the left side of my woods? What do you think? Thanks, Rick
 
Hi,
Woods made shields for the right, or left sides of the 59 mower.

Below are pages from the Woods 59C-2 owner's manual showing them.
The 2nd page has the part numbers, the left side shield is number 39 in the pic.

http://farmallcub.com/rudi_cub/www.clea ... age-08.jpg

http://farmallcub.com/rudi_cub/www.clea ... age-09.jpg

The mower I had came with shields for both sides, I don't know if all years of them did or not.

Below is the whole manual, if you need it.

http://farmallcub.com/rudi_cub/www.clea ... index.html

My opinion is the front and rear of the mower don't go down far enough to keep all the grass in the mower, the way modern lawn mowers do, so all the grass goes out the side.
I'm not sure how well it will work with a vacuum. :)
 
A friend of mine had adapted a Kubota mower deck, of comparable size to Woods 59, to work on his Cub while using a leaf vacuum. It worked well to the tune of 50 loads of leaves was a poor crop. 70+ loads was a typical year (he kept track of the loads each year right on the machine). Block off the left exit as mentioned and you should be good to go.

Bill
 
It is interesting the left cover is flat while the right has a curved surface. Also, it looks like the right hand has an optional chute. From the first link.

Thanks!
 
I h
Was given a ride on mower with a bagger attachment. I thought it might be pretty cool to use. The mower needed a key switch a solonoid and some welding on the deck. I did all that and thought I might keep it for use at my house. I quickly realized a bagger is either a novelty or for city yards. I dumped that thing about 2x after just cutting a small and I mean SMALL portion of my yard. My whole lot is only just under an acre and it's not all grass , I have a house, sheds, gravel etc. I literally only cut like the back corner of my yard. I pulled that thing off and just cut normal. I sold that thing about a week later and put that money toward something else. I could not imagine sucking up leaves with a bagger thing!!!
 
Hi,
Clemsonfor, below is a post from the Similar Topics at the bottom of the page, that were here when I looked.
The bottom pics on the page show the style of machine I think they are talking about above.
They are like a trailer that you pull behind the tractor, and it has a 1 cylinder engine on the tongue that generates wind.
Many brands of new mowers sell them, I think.

It is not a rear bagger, that goes on the rear of the mower.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=104084
 
I bet it would work. Many years ago I had a Toro rider that came with the house. It had a rear mounted bagger. The chute would clog up but then I would use it as a mulcher making one complete pass through the whole yard,then clean out the chute. The leaves then being chopped up and smaller would vacuum right up,worked great. I'd bet the Cub would work the same,cut the yard with all blanking plates in place, then mount up the vacuum and make your final pass. Gives you some seat time and no raking. Right now I don't bother to pick up but just make 2 complete mowings. All the leaves are then chopped up so fine I don't bother picking them up. I would like to try Woods mulcher attachments but they are crazy money. I only have two oak trees they are the hardest to chop up. All my others are linden,maple,walnut and locust trees which are easy soft leaves
 
Glen":njr4km76 said:
Hi,
Clemsonfor, below is a post from the Similar Topics at the bottom of the page, that were here when I looked.
The bottom pics on the page show the style of machine I think they are talking about above.
They are like a trailer that you pull behind the tractor, and it has a 1 cylinder engine on the tongue that generates wind.
Many brands of new mowers sell them, I think.

It is not a rear bagger, that goes on the rear of the mower.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=104084
Click to expand...
I know exactly what he was talking about. But like of of the posters above me said his buddy vacs up between 50 and 70 loads a year. That's a lot of loads of anything to dump. I was just saying I don't want anything that I have to dump what it accumulates. But if the OP doest mind that I 100% believe he can make it work. You can either weld or bolt in covers over the open chutes in the deck to redirect the flow of debris.
 
I once owned a trailer type AGRI FAB vac with a 5hp B&S engine with a radial fan attached to the CS output shaft, direct drive, that was designed to adapt to a riding mower. Worked well for collecting/mulching leaves. Later I towed it behind a 6ft grooming mower with the 6 inch suction hose adapted to the mower discharge. Still worked well but one major issue was the grooming mower was left side discharge and the hose connection for the vacuum was on the right side for a conventional lawn mower. The extra length hose that was needed to connect the suction to the mower presented additional plugging problems if there was a lot of leaves to be picked up. As noted above, mowing to mulch the leaves before vacuuming helped with the plugging problem. Pecan leaves, and lots of them. If you dispose of them distributed over an area to be plowed under they will need to be scattered. If you want to burn them, do it the same day they are picked up otherwise the finely chopped debris collects moisture and compacts to the point it's difficult to burn them. My experience FWIW!!
EDIT....Even though the trailer will dump, the mulched leaves would not completely empty out, I had to resort to raking them out of the cart/trailer with a large tine rake, (every load)!
 
I had a pull behind hooked to my cub for years. I did put the left side shield on and fabricated some curved metal under the 59 deck to direct all the grass to the right. I went to a local garden tractor junkyard and bought a couple metal shoots designed for grass vacuums. They make long ones and short ones. I bought the longer one and adapted it to the woods. I made it hinged so it would flip up when not in use. I can tell you first hand that pull behind setup worked excellent and left nothing behind. The neighbor bought a shorter shoot and we adapted it to his JD garden tractor and he used the vac system too. after using this a few years I acquired a 3 bag JD setup from my brother and direct hooked that to the cub. I had goats at the time and dumping the load of grass clippings gave the goats something to eat and play on. Later when I goats left, I switched to GATOR blades and just mulched everything. You'll end up with large amounts of grass and leaves over time.

Rick
 
Rick Prentice":191szx1r said:
. Later when I goats left, I switched to GATOR blades and just mulched everything. You'll end up with large amounts of grass and leaves over time.

Rick
Click to expand...
And this right here is another reason to think about when you remove grass and leaves from the site. Your removing nutrients and breaking up the nutrient recycling of the system, which in turn will deplete the site of resources. And if your doing this sort of thing to begin with you care about appearances so you will in turn need to increase or if not doing it now probably need to fertilize to maintain your same level of fertility.
 
This is the only pic I could find of either setup I used to have.
normal_DSC00005~0.jpg
 
Rick Prentice":1313qtsr said:
This is the only pic I could find of either setup I used to have.
normal_DSC00005~0.jpg
Click to expand...
I had two of those size bags if I remember right for that mower I am talking about. After a few hundred square feet of lawn I had to empty the bags. I didn't even cut 20% of my backyard before I took them off the second time to dump and I left them off for good then..
 
rick 48 cub":1rcp0dfd said:
It is interesting the left cover is flat while the right has a curved surface. Also, it looks like the right hand has an optional chute. From the first link.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

It’s flat, but it has a baffle inside so grass won’t accumulate there
 
got the agrifab one---it dont work -- not enough suction since the fan is chopper knife design and not regular air suction type----a waste of effort and money.
 
Yes they fill up fast, but you can't blame the machine for that. It is only doing what you wanted it to do. I have an Agri-fab for my Kubota and it always did a great job for me. I have a rake mounted on front to keep handy.

Back to your question, yes it will work as others stated with a little adaption, but you won't be making a lot of left turns.
 
Barnyard":18hbe3fl said:
Yes they fill up fast, but you can't blame the machine for that. It is only doing what you wanted it to do. I have an Agri-fab for my Kubota and it always did a great job for me. I have a rake mounted on front to keep handy.

Back to your question, yes it will work as others stated with a little adaption, but you won't be making a lot of left turns.
Click to expand...
Oh I agree. I'm just bringing up the point that you need to be aware and ok dumping those bags VERY frequently, basically all the time. Your right they fill up fast. And if you don't stop soon enough your probably cleaning out clogs. I was spending as much time handling bags as I actually was cutting grass.

They do work great and collect all your clippings though. And I am sure leaves in this case.
 
We've had a lot of rain here in central Virginia this summer grass growing and little time between to mow. So have had to cut deep grass several time which leaves clumps of grass which will kill what grass I have. Important to get it off as soon as possible. I use a lawn sweeper. Works really well! I also have to dump it often, too often in my opinion. Different method, same problem. The only solution I see is get someone else to do it. Either down size or hire it out. I need the exercise. And for anyone out there with coronary problems do not hand rake grass as using your arms to rake is 100% cardio. It will tax your heart severely unless you limit it to 2-3 minutes at a time. Then set down and rest for ten minutes. My rakes don't get much use.
 
Nelson 634":s1jjh9rj said:
We've had a lot of rain here in central Virginia this summer grass growing and little time between to mow. So have had to cut deep grass several time which leaves clumps of grass which will kill what grass I have. Important to get it off as soon as possible. I use a lawn sweeper. Works really well! I also have to dump it often, too often in my opinion. Different method, same problem. The only solution I see is get someone else to do it. Either down size or hire it out. I need the exercise. And for anyone out there with coronary problems do not hand rake grass as using your arms to rake is 100% cardio. It will tax your heart severely unless you limit it to 2-3 minutes at a time. Then set down and rest for ten minutes. My rakes don't get much use.
Click to expand...
I often times now to late. I'd like to mow more often but my life does not revoke around my lawn or lawn. Are so I do it when I have time.

The way around what you say is to raise your deck up high and run it over. It will discourse those clumps to an amount that won't kill your grass and it will grown through the finer layer of clippings and that will then become mulch and decompose (or if you have a very fancy picky lawn a place to breed fungus as well). But I also get the thick wind rows that if left will kill big areas of the lawn. I have a ZT mower and will either just raise the deck up and run over the clumps and thick spots again or usually just put my foot on the petal to raise the deck, leave it there as I hold it up high as I run over the thick spots. It blows it all over and distributes it even like I talked about. No dead spots in the grass and nothing to worry about and no need to take or another piece of equipment.
 
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