Victory Delayed is Sweet When it Arrives

Time for an update on the used mower I bought. It’s a 25-horsepower Kubota ZD326 diesel zero-turn.

I should begin with the mower’s age. I sent what I thought was the serial number to Kubota, and they said it was made in 2015. I thought that was great, because it suggested the mower had well below 1,000 hours. Someone has burst my bubble, however. I have been informed that the number I found is the number for the part it was attached to: the ROPS (Roll Over Protection System). A ROPS is a roll bar.

Kubota likes to put serial numbers all over the place. My deck has one, the mower itself has one, and they even put one on the ROPS.

The ACTUAL serial number is a little more than twice the ROPS number, so this is probably a pre-2010 mower. I have not checked yet.

If this mower was in use for 15 years instead of 10, in serious residential use, it should still come in at under 1,000 hours. Maybe less than 500. But I would rather have a 2015 mower than a 2009 mower.

The first time I tried to start the mower, I failed. I found it would start if I fiddled with things and tried starting it a few times. I was able to mow the yard the first time I tried. On Saturday, three days ago, fiddling didn’t work. I couldn’t mow. Fiddling hasn’t worked since.

I thought the mower wouldn’t start because I had failed to put the PTO lever in the right position. The PTO lever has a safety switch on it so the mower blades don’t start turning when you start the engine. I found out this was not the problem. I’m not sure what the issue is, but I have bought some parts, and I am going through the starting system bit by bit.

I replaced the safety switch on the parking brake, and that didn’t help. I have ordered other safety switches so I can replace them. There are switches on the levers you use to steer the machine.

I eventually learned how to hotwire the mower, so I am able to mow while I go through the process of fixing it.

When I hotwired the mower today in order to mow, I thought things were going great, but then it stalled when I moved the control levers. Through trial and error, I found out that I had to bypass the brake switch in order to keep the motor running. As soon as I moved the levers with the switch installed, the motor died. I don’t know what this means yet, but the mower runs with the switch unplugged, so I will be able to mow until I figure things out.

It looks like I installed the wrong part. The safety switches on this think look alike. Some are open by default, and some are closed. Not a big deal, since the old switch tests fine and can be put back in.

I could remove the switch permanently. I don’t need a parking brake switch. My mower isn’t going to roll across Florida while I try to start it. If I lived in Colorado, maybe I would want to keep the switch. This particular switch is not needed in order to make the mower run. If you remove it, the mower starts and runs fine.

Getting to the PTO safety switch is not easy. The mower’s control panel is on the right fender, and a bunch of things go through the panel. Wiring for the idiot lights. Two levers. A big, stiff knob that controls the cutting height. In order to change the switch, you have to remove the panel, and to get the panel off, you have to remove the knob.

The problem with removing the knob is that it is held onto a thick shaft by friction, and it does not want to come off. I tried doing it as gently as I could, and I broke one side of the knob. I believe the right way to get the knob off is to remove a cotter pin from the shaft, down under the fender, but getting to the cotter pin is hard because…the control panel is in the way. I think it can be done with the right long-nose pliers, which I probably have.

I had to order an $11 knob and the decal that goes on the knob and lists the cutting heights.

Believe it or not, I’m making all this sound a lot easier than it was, and I’m leaving a lot of suffering out.

Oh…hey…I just found out the cotter pin is really a clevis pin. That makes things a lot easier. I don’t have to bend a clevis pin closed in order to pull it out or insert it.

I’ve also had to deal with fluids. The guy who sold me the mower put too much fluid in the hydraulic system, so I had to remove and throw out half a gallon of expensive Kubota SUDT2. He also put maybe 12 ounces more oil in the engine than was needed, so I had to drain it into a pan. I don’t know whether he changed the fluid in the deck gearbox, so I’ll be doing that shortly. It’s not hard, so it will be fast. IF ALL GOES WELL. Always add that.

Today I got the mower going, and I mowed quite a bit. Then the mower started slowing down, as though it were going to die. I thought this might be because I had run one of the tanks dry on the previous outing. This mower has two tanks (don’t ask me why), and you have to switch from one tank to the other when your first tank is empty.

When a diesel goes dry, and you start it up again after restoring the fuel flow, you may find there is air in the system somewhere, and depending on the diesel, it will clear the air out on its own, or you will have to do it yourself via a process which may be horrible. When my mower started stumbling, I hoped it would push the air out without help.

The mower slowed down more than once, and it kept speeding up again, so I thought the air was being eliminated. Eventually, though, I had to switch tanks. Then the mower ran well…until it didn’t. When things got bad, I started heading for the house, and the mower died in the driveway, blocking my car in the garage.

I figured it had to be the fuel filter. I looked it up, and a bad fuel filter can make a diesel with a governor slow down temporarily. It will increase the throttle to try to compensate for the reduced fuel flow, but if the flow gets bad enough, the motor will die anyway.

Does my motor even have a governor? No idea. There must be something in there that keeps the maximum RPM’s down, because this mower is supposed to mow at full tilt boogie.

I read and read, and eventually, I started to wonder if I was the problem. Maybe I had simply run out of diesel on the last tank, AFTER having air problems with the first.

I have looked at the owner’s and workshop manual a lot, but I never bothered to read about the fuel gauge. I figured I was smart enough to read one on my own. That may have been a fateful bit of hybris.

This mower has a fuel gauge on the control panel. It also has a yellow idiot light with “RH TANK” printed beside it. I didn’t really think about what this meant. I didn’t look at it much at all. I figured the fuel gauge measured the fuel in whichever tank I was using, and that if the idiot light went on, I was on the right-hand tank.

It turns out the fuel gauge is only for the port, or secondary, tank. You’re supposed to run on the starboard tank until the idiot light comes on. It means that tank is low. Then you switch to the left tank, and the gauge tells you how much fuel you have left until you’re stranded.

I now think I had air in the lines, switched to the right tank, and then ran it dry while assuming it had plenty of fuel in it. The gauge read full.

The mower sat in the driveway for maybe two hours while I tried to figure things out. I put some fuel in each tank, started the mower, and took off. It did slow down briefly, but it kept going.

The diesel in the tanks looks pure. I don’t think the fuel filters are clogged. I ordered a couple anyway because new diesel filters are always a good idea. Kubota put them in a funny place, so changing them will take at least 30 minutes. IF ALL GOES WELL. I am learning.

Tomorrow a lot of parts arrive, so I will be changing switches, the armrests, and a few other things. I plan to dump the oil but keep the filter, since it’s new. I think the seller used 40w, which is probably okay in this climate, but I want to put synthetic 15w-40 in it, as the manual suggests. The small amount of 40w, if that’s what it is, in the filter won’t be enough to mess up the properties of the 15w-40.

I’m going to check the ignition switch. I don’t see why I need one, so if it’s hinky, I may replace it with a momentary switch I already have.

Everyone who likes stealing mowers knows how to hotwire one in 10 seconds, so it appears the only person the ignition switch prevents from running the mower is me. And a mower with a momentary switch where the ignition switch used to be would be a lot easier to identify for the police. Not that they ever make any effort whatsoever to recover stolen goods.

I was only able to mow about 60% of my yard today. The parts I mowed looked fantastic. The John Deere never saw the day it could cut this well. Or maybe it did, but I didn’t know how to make it do it. The cut is flat and pretty, and I can actually tell where I’ve already mowed. With the John Deere, I had to guess.

I bought mulching blades, but I think I might send them back. I’ve only used this mower 1.6 times, with standard blades, and it has minced my oak leaves. I feel like dropping to my knees and thanking God. The JD simply could not do this. Don’t ask me why.

Those leaves were a source of what seemed as if it would be eternal torment. Gathering and burning them was a job for Sisyphus plus Hercules. Nearly undoable. My John Deere mulching kit made a big difference when the mower actually ran, but not like the Kubota. I am now confident I can end my leaf problem permanently just by riding around on a lawnmower. I’m almost afraid to believe it.

The leaf debris is still with me, but it seems like 80% of it has disappeared. I don’t know where it went. I used to have thick carpets of dead leaves, and the leaf fragments I now have seem to have maybe 20% of the volume.

No one but me could ever understand why having the Kubota disintegrate my leaves is such a big deal to me. You would have to have been there when I bought a $600 leaf blower and tried making piles which I raked and put into a wagon or utility cart and hauled off and burned. You would have to have been beside me when I went to a mower store and nearly let a guy convince me a used 48″ gas mower would do it. I brought a landscaper out here for an interview. I nearly bought a $1,500 towed leaf vacuum.

Nobody ever told me, “Get a big-ass commercial diesel zero-turn, and your leaves will disappear.” This, in a county where you can hardly toss a dwarf without hitting a zero-turn on a trailer. It seems like every third vehicle on the road is a pickup pulling landscaping tools. Why couldn’t anyone give me the answer? Didn’t they know?

The Kubota moves twice as fast as a tractor like the John Deere. That makes a big difference. It makes a 60″ deck mow like 120″. And it turns in place, so you don’t have to sworp out in wasted loops every time you turn around. You just stop at the end of a strip you’ve mowed, turn where you are, and mow a strip next to it. I thought a zero-turn might mow twice as fast as a tractor. No; it’s faster than that. You move faster, and you travel a much shorter distance.

The mower puts a lot of filth in the air, and about half of it lands on me, but this was also true of the John Deere. Nothing can be done. I take my boots off in the garage, and I take my clothes off in the laundry room, which has a tile floor which is easy to clean.

I bought myself a fancy dirt biking mask to keep everything out of my eyes. The manufacturer is a company called Wolfsnout. They also make foam dust masks. I ordered one of those, too. They say you can breathe freely with this mask. Not true. When I put it on, I breathed like Heavy D on the slopes of Everest, and my nose ran into the foam. I can’t make it work. But a stretchy neck gaiter works well with the mask. My eyes use to be a mess the night after a mow. Not any more.

Tomorrow may be the first day I use the mower without major annoyances. I may have to hotwire it again, but I have reasonable hopes it will finish up the yard without dying.

If this thing turns out to have severe hidden issues that make it a horror to deal with, I might actually snap and spend $19,000 on a new one. Life is short, and I can only take so much. I realize I can pay a crew for over three years for that kind of money, but I am utterly fed up with mowing struggles, and I am going to see an end to them no matter what it takes. This is the single most annoying problem I have as a homeowner.

I could get a new gas mower that would do the same thing for $13,000 but I am ALL DONE WITH GAS. When I say I’m not going back, I feel like one of those guys who rushes the police, with two shots left in a rusty .22 pistol he stole from his grandmother, screaming he’s not going back to prison. I understand them. I’m not buying another big gas carb I have to rebuild every year. I’m not dealing with another rusted gas tank. I don’t want to buy any more ethanol-busting additive than I already have.

I’m old. I don’t need this. My son doesn’t need an inheritance. He’s good-looking. He can be a model.