[Lawn Ranger]

I have a John Deere 430, which is a 20-HP diesel garden tractor. Hurricane Irma made a mess of my yard, and now I have a lot of live oak twigs and sticks to get rid of. I would like to use a rake behind my tractor.

I tried to choose a rake online, but the Deere site is beyond worthless, and other sites are confusing. I see a lot of choices at Rural King, and they all look the same to me.

Will a landscape rake get this job done, and can someone tell me what I should be looking for when I buy one? I need to clean up several acres.

 

[Colonel K0rn]

If it was me, I'd throw a cheap set of blades on my ZTR and chop that mess up. Several acres is a lot of twigs!

 

[Lawn Ranger]

Well, that's another issue. I have no idea how to get this thing off the ground to change the blades. The manual says it weighs a thousand pounds. The previous owner said he had ramps, but I don't see how that would get me enough clearance.

 

[Lawn Ranger]

I decided to follow the manual and take the deck off the mower. Now I want to kill everyone who works in the manual department at John Deere. It was a horrible experience, and it looks like one reason is that the manual is wrong. The deck won't lower enough to slide out past the tractor's frame. You have to jack it up. Next time I'm going to use jackstands and chocks.

There's a thing with arms that goes on the front of the mower. For some reason, the people at Yanmar decided to make it an interference fit with the mounts it rests in. Lots of fun, banging it into place with a deadblow hammer.

I saw a John Deere manual that said to leave a 0.4mm-wide cutting edge on the blades. What? Seriously? I have tough bahia grass, and the blades were tearing it and pushing it over instead of cutting it. I put a sharper edge on the blades. Hope that wasn't a mistake, but 0.4mm is considerably less sharp than a butter knife.

I didn't even try to torque the blades to spec, whatever that is. When you tighten one blade, they all spin, and I found it difficult to hang onto them or block them. I used an impact wrench to put the bolts in, and I figured that would have to do.

I took the advice about mulching the twigs. Worked fine, apart from leaving the stuff the blades didn't reach. I figured if it dulled the blades, that was okay, since I knew how to take them off for sharpening.

 

[Redtenchu]

I noticed this on R&R today. No idea if it'll work on your JD.

Spring Rake

 

[J_nick]

I noticed this on R&R today. No idea if it'll work on your JD.

Spring Rake

Wow they are PROUD of that thing

 

[MasterMech]

Impact on the blade bolts is fine as long as you don't over-do it. Taking those older decks off is a challenge if things are all bent up or severely mal-adjusted. If everything is in reasonable shape, should be pretty easy.

Deere manuals are generally top-tier compared to others. Especially the older ones that give way more technical detail than a typical operators manual. I'm surprised to hear that you found yours lacking.

If your 430 has a 3 pt hitch, there are many take options for it, maybe not the most efficient way to gather twigs though. I think York still makes a small towable model too.

 

[Lawn Ranger]

Someone suggested to me that Deere specifies dull blades because the edges are harder to roll over.

 

[MasterMech]

Someone suggested to me that Deere specifies dull blades because the edges are harder to roll over.

That's true, and a razor edge will abrade to a rounded edge pretty quickly in sandy/dusty conditions too. Facing a blade to .5mm has worked out very well for me to date. I notice no difference in cut quality over a razor edged blade.