Farmall H Tractor

Big gear box, you can be sure its heavy duty. Small gear box, wouldnt bet on it.

Brandname "Brush Hog" model to avoid like the plague is one called the Squealer. Elderly friend bought one of these after his old Woods brush hog was getting worn out. Dang thing sheared pins if you even looked at it cross eyed and had tiny gear box. And it did squeal..... Also just about time you thought you had it adjusted to mow evenly, you would be proved wrong. It wasnt even close to the quality of his old Woods mower.

Now I've got an old 5 ft Brush hog with huge gearbox and very heavy deck and it will outlast me. Bought it at some auction for $25 though cost me about a hundred to replace the missing pto shaft with new one. For whatever Murphys Law reasoning, just couldnt find a good cheap used pto shaft the right length.

And dont buy a brush hog of any brand that some idgit filled gear box with grease cause he was too lazy to properly replace a bad seal. The gears just dig a hole in the pile of grease and the hole doesnt fill in. You dont get lubrication until the box gets hot enough to melt some of the grease. It works for a while, but not very good long term thinking. Changing a seal can be a pain, but its not THAT difficult....

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

I used to build a rotary mower and it was an off brand. it will do anything the Bush Hog will. I even made several for the Highway Department and they stood up with the best of them. What to look for is a frame of angle iron and sides made from I-beam and a good gear box. Most of the manufacturers use a Borg Warner gear box. Get one with at least a 40 hp gear box. I now have a King Kutter and am pleased by the performance of it.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

Yup, not just location but the particular hunk of ground. There's a strip of ground running through on of my fields that has stopped a 100hp 4wd tractor dead in it's tracks pulling 3-18 Kvernlands. The rest of the field plows 10" deep like it's butter.

I had hardpan in my big field, And the plow would get to it, the tractor would grunt down for a second, then the plows would skip over it. That happened for 10 yrs. BUT I finally got it all plowed through, and I never notice it nowadays.