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ATV with Mower
I am considering a swisher or ArcEase tow behind mower for an ATV. I already own the ATV and recently purchased property with about 5 acres to mow. Anyone have any experience with either product? Or with just using an ATV with a tow mower?
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ATV with Mower
Brother inlaw had one.. it scalp the ground in to many places. Also... try to back one up or manuever it around any trees. Wait to you get into an awkward position.. ok on flat ground and no obstacles.
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ATV with Mower
I own a rough cut mower with a 13 h.p. honda engine. I have had one with a briggs engine for 4 years. I am happy with the mower. The cut height is adjustable, and it will cut very tall weeds. I would not recommend for very tight turning applications, but mostly straight ahead or room to turn it is great. It came from cycle country. They have a web site of the same name. Good luck.
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ATV with Mower
When I worked at an ATV dealer I would see ATVs come in for service that were being used as mowers. ATVs that have air cooled engines are not meant to lug around a mower at slow speeds for extended periods. In the late 80's, Yamaha made an ATV for mowing. It could be bought with a rough cut or finish rear mounted deck. The deck was PTO powered. The engine was air cooled but had a huge fan that blew air across it to keep it cool. It also had a throttle you would set for a set speed.
It seemed the first things to go bad when the engine would get real hot was the electical parts under the flywheel. The ignition pick-up coil or the charging coil.
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ATV with Mower
This is mostly some theory of which I have an amateur grasp. Some interesting things to think about I hope. I believe that's true about air-cooled engines. When I bought our Honda generator, I looked at a 2-cylinder water-cooled model. It had similar electrical ratings as the 6500 I bought for considerable less money. What's the difference I asked the dealer? The dealer says that contractors buy the water-cooled model because they have longer service lives. I'd guess it's the water cooling rather than the 2-cylinders that makes the difference.
I think that water-cooled engines operate in a narrower range of normal operating temperatures. An engine is built to fit together at one temperature in an ideal sense (Pistons are actually cylinders that fit the rings, valve heads fit valve seats etc. at one temperature). Wear on an engine is minimal at the ideal temperature, and wear increases as the operating temperature goes away from the ideal temperature. I'm pretty sure that an engine that is engineered to operate over a wider temperature range is going to wear faster. The wear is likely to be even faster when operated near the extremes of its normal temperature range.
I don't know if there's a blower on the ATV but I do know that passive air cooling on motorcycles depends on motion. There's more cooling when you're going faster. An assumption in the motorcycle engine design is that prolonged high engine load is accompanied by high speed.
An ATV used for mowing is going to have perhaps a higher load than is anticipated by the design and also moving at slower speeds. The engine RPM may be high if it's 'geared down' and then a blower would help the cooling. The engine may still run hotter than normal but higher RPM also adds to wear. Either way, I suspect that an ATV engine isn't designed for this type of work and using it for mowing is likely to require engine work sooner or result in the problems treeman mentioned.
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ATV with Mower
I guess you realize the Deutz and some Russian tractors have air cooled diesel engines.
The problem is the speed and the air necessary to keep the ATV cool.
I guess the problem I have is that I would be running two engines to complete one task. Neither engine is efficient.
The price of the ATV and the pull behind together is more than a good used tractor and bushhog.
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ATV with Mower
Yeah! And just think of all those old VW's from years back! They were fan/air cooled engines but they worked just fine in most places before smog laws drove them from the market. I will never forget the Christmas day I drove to Tok from Anchorage in my (water cooled) Ford Van to rescue my brother in his VW van. Fifty below was just a little too much air cooling for that critter. Thank God he managed to limp into town in first gear (several hours in first gear) before the engine finally died. People have died up there doing less.
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ATV with Mower
Didn't know that about Russian air cooled tractor diesels, but a design shouldn't be too difficult. I'm not sure, but I imagine that the engines used on WWII B-29's (and later on DC-7's I think) also were air-cooled and would have to operate reliably over an extremely wide range of loads and air temperatures. Their problem may have been excessive cooling. Perhaps exhaust was used for engine heat when necessary.
Lots of possible designs. I think some engines were even cooled with steam rather than liquid. Guess I'm mostly just throwing info around here. Probably everybody agrees that there is an ideal temperature for an engine and wear is least if the engine temperature is maintained in a narrow range around that point. There also probably general agreement that the cooling system of ATV engines are unlikely to be designed for geared-down high-load uses.
Maybe a conclusion relevant to tractors is that an engine that doesn't come up into the normal operating range may need about as much attention as one that runs hot.
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ATV with Mower
The biggest problem with these units seems to be the ATV itself, they are designed for maximum traction, not turf care, as a result most do not have a differential, the two rear wheels are locked together, like an old 'Detroit Locker'. Unless you unload one wheel (read tip in the air, not a good practice) or make a REALLY wide turn you will tear up the grass, instead of cutting it. I have only seen one of these that worked out, it was a self-powered 4' bush-hog pushed in FRONT of an ATV and used exclusively for keeping the brush back away from a walking trail. Best of luck.
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ATV with Mower
Didn't know that about ATV's, but I should have guessed. Now that I think about it, I helped a neighbour recover his ATV that had gone off a snowmobile trail. He probably should have waited a few weeks to gel the ATV out of the shed.
We just carried my steel loading ramps to the ATV, lifted up the front wheels and put the ramps under the front wheels. The ATV pulled itself right up the ramps and back onto the trail. Now that I think about it both rear wheels were throwing snow as it pulled itself up the ramps.
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04-25-2017, 00:56 
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