So says the mechanic I took it to. I think that's likely BS as I've never been in a collision with it, and when I bought it from the guy who had been running it around the edge of his cornfields (in the junk corn that the farmer renting it encouraged him to play in) it wasn't noisy and didn't track to the right.

The trooper is running fine, just noisy as hell inside. (muffler?) so I took it off my insurance because it wasn't worth driving with earplugs. Yes, that loud. It's a dandy work truck for moving logs n stuff so I keep it around my land anyway.

Anyway, I have a huge yard here and mowing it with a pushmower is a PITA. I have a riding mower with a thrown rod.

I'm wondering if there would be a good way to mount the deck of the rider to the front of my trooper, sort of like a snowplow? Then I could do large areas relatively quickly, and clean up with the pushmower.

ETA: setting up an additional motor driven deck might be too technically problematic, but there's plenty of reel mowers around here to be found at yard sales. I could spend a few days sharpening and oiling them all and then adjusting to spec (big big reason that people have a hard time with reel mowers, they need to be precisely adjusted) and then weld them into a large deck.

Example:

Put an ad on craigslist: "trade parts trooper for riding mower"

I suppose you could run it off the front driveshaft. You would have to see what your RPMs are when front driveshaft is engaged. Sounds like a project but visibility would be a pain.

You could either do a rotary mower or a flail type mower.

nah, it'd be way smarter to run a little hydraulic motor off the power steering pump....

but still not as smart as trading the troop for an old riding mower

Don't build what you can buy. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

Do you really own an Isuzu? <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Richard <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />

The thing is I use it as a utility work vehicle and I really enjoy driving it around for that purpose, so I'd like to work out how to mow with it as well.

I'm assuming that the suggestion to use the power steering would be for raising and lowering the deck, which would be powered from a seperate motor? I'm not too keen on setting up something that monkeys with the front driveshaft.

no, i mean that the power steering pump is a fairly strong hydraulic pump, and that you can run a relatively high speed vane type or gear type hydraulic motor from it that would power the rotating blades or spinning flail of whatever you rig to the front - avoiding the complexity of two separate gas engines and connecting with just a pair of hoses and perhaps a valve if you're one of those guys who likes having arms and feet.

http://www.earthmoving.com.au/slashers%20&%20mowers.htm

and if the power steering pump doesn't have enough flow rate (GPM) then you can mount a second one where the a/c compressor used to be.

Or, save yourself a lot of work, money, time, and effort by buying a riding mower.

Just make a housing and mount individual small push lawn mower engines with blades in it. Start them all up separately, then pull em along. . One dies, re-start it, engine fails, replace it with another junker. I pulled 3 mowers out of the trash just last week. One I had running before I walked it back down to my house.

- Jim

you should look up monster garage's episode where they turned the ford mustang into a lawnmower.

classic