Good hills and bad hills - how do I tell the difference?

I everyone, I'm new here and new to riding mowers. I just purchased a JD E180 with a 54" deck. I have been cautiously trying it out on some of the hills on my property and I honestly can't tell where the tipping point is. I suspect I'm not close -but don't want to find out the hard way.

The JD manual has a piece of paper with grade percent you hold up to the hill (I thought they were kidding at first) but I don't own any hills that are a perfect flat slope.

I'm also trying to figure out the best way to make turns on the slope when driving across. Turn going up, or going down ? (Down seems the safest but...).

Any thoughts on how to find and then avoid the limits would be appreciated...

Mark

You can mount one of these, but your pucker-factor will probably kick in long before you're actually in danger.

https://www.leveldevelopments.com/products/inclinometers/ball-bubble-inclinometers/

I had one of the 'ball' inclinometers. It broke before I ever got it mounted. If I was going to buy another, I'd buy the bubble type.

cpurvis said:

You can mount one of these, but your pucker-factor will probably kick in long before you're actually in danger.

https://www.leveldevelopments.com/products/inclinometers/ball-bubble-inclinometers/

I had one of the 'ball' inclinometers. It broke before I ever got it mounted. If I was going to buy another, I'd buy the bubble type.

Click to expand...

Hot Dam Purv, ..I THOUGHT U was always "Level-Headed" , so R U leanin "LEFT or RIGHT " these days ..?? Right-On is better than bein Left-Out !! .. :laughing:..:laughing:

Hard right. I'm so far right that if I go any further right, I'll be to
the left of left.

lngtrm1 said:

I everyone, I'm new here and new to riding mowers. I just purchased a JD E180 with a 54" deck. I have been cautiously trying it out on some of the hills on my property and I honestly can't tell where the tipping point is. I suspect I'm not close -but don't want to find out the hard way.

The JD manual has a piece of paper with grade percent you hold up to the hill (I thought they were kidding at first) but I don't own any hills that are a perfect flat slope.

I'm also trying to figure out the best way to make turns on the slope when driving across. Turn going up, or going down ? (Down seems the safest but...).

Any thoughts on how to find and then avoid the limits would be appreciated...

Mark

Click to expand...

Mark.
It is always safest to turn down a hill.
But in either case the word is gradual.
A sharp turn either way will turn the E 180 into a sombrero
JD make ROPS for every mower they make so if you feel insecure put one on.
As for hills try to go directly up & down where possible.
Mowing across a hill is a bad practice.
Firstly you end up with a sawtooth cut as the downhill side will always cut lower.
Next there is oil flow.
Vertical shaft engines have a large shallow sump and it does not take much of a slope to have the oil pick up in the air.
After that there is the effect on the carb, depending upon how the float is hinged you can end up running rich or lean mowing across a slope.
Tractor style mowers are a lot more stable than ZTR's and you will feel the uphill wheel starting to loose traction way before the mower will tip.
I have some extreme hills to mow on the street verge that end too close to the barbed wire fence to be able to turn so I do 1 run along the slope.
To do that I move uphill in the seat & hold on to the rear mudguard ( fender to some ) to prevent the mower tipping.
After that I can zig-zag up & down the hill.
On the really bad sections it is a 2 stroke 24" push mower on the cutting to the road is it an 18" 2 stroke push mower .
Both of these are too steep to even use a 4 stroke push mower without siezing the engine.

cpurvis said:

You can mount one of these, but your pucker-factor will probably kick in long before you're actually in danger.

https://www.leveldevelopments.com/products/inclinometers/ball-bubble-inclinometers/

I had one of the 'ball' inclinometers. It broke before I ever got it mounted. If I was going to buy another, I'd buy the bubble type.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendation, pucker factor already pretty high but looking at that 54 deck, it seems almost impossible for it to tip all the way over. Sorry for the delay responding, power out here for days after a big storm.

bertsmobile1 said:

Mark.
It is always safest to turn down a hill.
But in either case the word is gradual.
A sharp turn either way will turn the E 180 into a sombrero
JD make ROPS for every mower they make so if you feel insecure put one on.
As for hills try to go directly up & down where possible.
Mowing across a hill is a bad practice.
Firstly you end up with a sawtooth cut as the downhill side will always cut lower.
Next there is oil flow.
Vertical shaft engines have a large shallow sump and it does not take much of a slope to have the oil pick up in the air.
After that there is the effect on the carb, depending upon how the float is hinged you can end up running rich or lean mowing across a slope.
Tractor style mowers are a lot more stable than ZTR's and you will feel the uphill wheel starting to loose traction way before the mower will tip.
I have some extreme hills to mow on the street verge that end too close to the barbed wire fence to be able to turn so I do 1 run along the slope.
To do that I move uphill in the seat & hold on to the rear mudguard ( fender to some ) to prevent the mower tipping.
After that I can zig-zag up & down the hill.
On the really bad sections it is a 2 stroke 24" push mower on the cutting to the road is it an 18" 2 stroke push mower .
Both of these are too steep to even use a 4 stroke push mower without siezing the engine.

Click to expand...

Great info, I'm a racing fan so starving the engine of oil is a known problem with g force but never thought they'd build a tractor that could run itself dry on a slope. I would have thought XTRs were lower center of gravity..huh...and then there's my 200 lbs perched up there...

My slope is wide but not very tall so vertical mowing isn't practical so how do I combat the oil starvation cutting sideways? (really about 10 mins run time doing it with the 54" cut)

Sombrero?

Sorry for the delay responding, power out here for days after a big storm.

For mowing on hills you really need a horizontal shaft engined mower.
These have a smaller cross section and deeper sump so tilting is not a problem.
A vertical shaft engine has a large cross section shallow sump.
Look at your engine.
The oil level is just below the joining line between the sump & crank case.
In most engines the oil pick up is between 1/2 to 1/3 the distance between the crank & the crank case wall.
And the entry hole is 1/2" to 1" above the bottom of the sump.

So it does not take much of a slope to get in an oil starvation situation.
The big ends are normally fine because they can get enough splash to keep them going.
The lower bearing is usually in oil so that is not a great problem.
But the top bearing will start to run dry after around a minute.
Steep slopes for a short time are generally ok as the oil well on the top bush is good for a minute or two.
But mowinf along a long slope will have it running dry.
the 15 deg is OK but anything more than 20 is in the engine danger zone.

I managed to kill 2 engines mowing the roadside verge till I twigged to this.
Both mowers had a gravity feed fuel tank so I had to mow carb side down and that had the engine in an oil starvation position.
The only solution was to change to a horizontal shaft engine for the steepest section or to zig-zag to keep the oil flowing.

Sombrero? wearing your mower as a hat.

bertsmobile1 said:

JD make ROPS for every mower they make so if you feel insecure put one on.

Click to expand...

I'll be darned if I can find one online that JD makes. I was hoping it would be a quick install and they'd have that figured out....am I doing the internet wrong? :frown::wink: