Recap: Zero-Turn Mowers Education Session - Video and Transcript

Please enjoy this transcript and video filmed at the Outdoor Work Virtual Forum - April 2020. Transcripts may contain a few typos—with the entire forum lasting 2+ hours, it’s difficult to catch some minor errors. Enjoy!

Russell: What we've got, in front of us is the range of John Deere Zero-Turn Mowers. We had hoped to have two more machines here but a big shout out to Luke and David great sales guys who sold them yesterday. So, we've got more stock coming next week. So, at this point, we'll start with the 48 and 54- and 60-inch machine - so - probably better for your large property owners.

We do have a range that starts at 42 inches, but Luke took that one away. In the middle, we've got the third machine - which is the Z525E. It's a machine comes with a 48-inch deck. On the left hand, left hand side here, we've got Z540M, this comes fitted with a 54-inch deck. On the right-hand side, we've got Z730M, which is our entry level commercial machine.

What makes John Deere most unique really, in some respects is that every deck we make is pressed out of one piece of steel. There's a lot of talk and there's a lot of people in the industry that talk about fabricated decks. At John Deere, we only make one type of deck and that's pressed out of one bit of steel. The simple fact is if you can press a deck out of a piece of steel that's the same thickness that you fabricated deck out of, the press deck is always stronger. You don't have any weld lines to break up on and you don't have any corners.

The other thing when you fabricated a deck is you're trying to make a deck out of the least amount of pieces of steel you can, you don't end up with a jigsaw puzzle and you have to compromise on airflow; airflow in a deck is critical.

A mowing deck is all about cutting the grass, getting it up, shifting it across the top of the blades and out the exit chute. If you're not going to side throw then you might be going to mulch and the purpose of a mulching deck is to continue to get the grass to turn over and over and over and cut up very fine and lay back down in the grass that you've already cut.

So, with a John Deere deck when the engineers design a John Deere deck it's all about airflow. The order is the grass cut, it's cut and shifts across and out the other side. These decks are all four inches, or in the case of the big deck five inches deep from the blade cut position to the top of the deck, there's plenty of room for the grass to move above the blade in that. On the front, there's a step up, which allows the grass to come over under and get vacuumed up and stand up right.

When we press a deck, we can press it with the airflow in mind. One interesting fact is we're told the press that they used to press these decks is the biggest one of its kind in the US. We can actually press a deck and I have got an example. 72'' cut and a seven-gauge steel in one piece. It's an absolute monster.

So, working with our decks, we've got nice thick decks. Press that one piece of steel, you can see the thickness on the edge of the deck. This is a 11-gauge deck and it is a very very thick and sturdy deck. It creates a very, very, very good cutting experience. What we find is that when it comes to cutting grass and shifting it out the side at speed, which is what we're all after, it's unsurpassed. These two 54- and 48-inch decks are XL decks.

This is a 10-gauge deck which is slightly thicker again and pressed on our full commercial pattern. The full commercial machine is seven gauge. This machine has a solid bar reinforcing on the edge and it's actually five inches deep, from the bottom of the blade. To anyone who's used one of these decks will tell you that when it comes to cutting grass and shifting it out the side, there is nothing that performs like this. When it's all said and done, when it comes to cutting grass, all you need to be able to do is to cut the grass and shift it quickly because the faster you can shift to the other side, the faster you can go forward and the better cut you get.

Moving back to the yellow deck - so we're starting with a 52” 58”. This machine is powered by a 2 cylinder Briggs and Stratton engine, When we move into the 540M, we move into a Kawasaki engine in the twin cylinder. And when we move over to 730 it's also Kawasaki Engine.

The basic operation of a John Deere Zero-Turn Mower machine is always interesting, and I'm sure there's many out there that understand how Zero-Turn Mower works. We also get about 50% of the customers that come through have never driven a Zero-Turn Mower.

So just very quickly, so we understand what the principal is: We have an operating position and two levers to works very similar, skid steer lever or any skid steer machine actually. To start the machine, we won't do it because it's really loud, we turn the key on, we start the engine, we release the pop right, which is on the left-hand side here and we move our levers together. 

Now each of these levers drives one back wheel. The left-hand lever drives the left wheel and the right, the right. The further you push it the faster you go and if you move backwards the wheel goes backwards. Understandably, if you push one lever forward or backwards, you'll make some very maneuverable and a fantastically fast machine because with the type of drive trains we can actually get a lot faster ground speed. The only downside of a Zero-Turn Mower is that on side slopes, the steep or wet, they can slip and slide a little bit. If you're concerned about your sideswipes talk to us, we can have a look at your place and we can give you a recommendation. Zero-Turn Mowers will go up and down steep slopes very well but side slopes they have a little bit of a battle on.

The other nice thing about a Zero-Turn Mower is generally when you get to go to get to the mowing deck, it's much easier than conventional ride on.

Here on the right-hand side of the machine we've got a deck rise in lower lever. We then lower this deck right down to the very ground in order to get to the top of it to clean it out; belt and spindle area.

The spring lever pins allows to get in and clean the debris out so that we don't get any debris in there to damage our belts after we finished and as we go along. A build up of debris can get caught in the belt and ended up cutting it, damaging the belt.

When it comes to operating a machine, the Zero-Turn Mower has a bunch of safety features built into it.

One of those of course is the seat switch, we are all quite used to those. It's like hidden up under the seat means that if you pull the back side of the seat, the machine will stop so that you don't have a chance of cutting your fingers or toes off when you hop on and off the machine.

Further than that the machine won't drive - you can't pull your levers in and drive if your park break is still on so in order to drive you need to pull your park break off and then you can drop the machine.

All these John Deere machines come with electric flashing gauge for the belt to cut the grass and that's a cool button and a push button. As you can see on all the machines when it comes to operator comfort, all machines are fitted with seats with armrests. One nice thing in the Zero-Turn Mower is if you lean your elbows on the armrest and relax your forearms you are going to have intense and tight but relax them. The machine will drive much smoother and you'll have a lot less fatigue.

Why do we have multiple models in a range?

Really what it comes down to is deck side. A 525A is a 48-inch cut, it's a good machine for a couple of acres. If you're moving into three or four acres, you might want to go for a Z540M. It gives you 54-inch cut, a little bit less time on the ground and just a little bit more robust. The Kawasaki is a little bit better, bigger and a slightly more commercial version of a petrol engine.

If you're a serious small-time contractor, even a medium size contractor or a large property owner, the Z730 and its little brothers, the Z720 which is the 54- and 48-inch version, is an amazing machine. This machine has a massive steel tube chassis, you can see the section size out here.

It has the high capacity five-inch-deep 10-gauge deck which is basically a copy of the commercial seven gauge just not quite as thick. And it shares the enormous deck spindle. The enormous deck spindle that the commercial machine uses the diameter of which is outlined here with a six-ball housing. This is a machine that really surpasses anything that you will ever need.

James: So, questions from the audience. So, what are the general safety features of the Z track?  

Russell: So, safety features include, as we discussed a seat switch, if I'm cutting grass and I've got my mower deck engaged and the blades are cutting, I don't want to hop off the deck, hop off the machine because obviously, it's dangerous. If I hop off the deck and the blades are still going, I've got the capacity to put my toes under or my fingers on that and end up in a bit of a full state. The other features are to hop off the mower and leave the engine running. I have to put the pass rate on, and I have to move my movers out, which means the machine can't move, my mower must be off, and my engine can continue to run. So, if I know the shift of it, or a ball or some obstacle on the lawn, it's possible with the engine running, but the machine is locked down and it can't move.

And one final question before we cross back is what sort of accessories genuine John Deere can we get to those machines?

So, one of the most common features that we fit on a Zero-Turn Mower, is a fantastic option if you're looking to cut the grass and return the cut grass back into the lawn, this Material Collection System kit that feeding out in underneath the deck.

We don't have one feed in today. But what it'll do is it'll stop the grass moving out of the outside the deck and blowing into a windrow. It'll cut the grass up and return down the lawn. The other common feature is a catcher.

Here we’ve got a large commercial Zero-Turn Mower ready to go. This is the catching unit, sucks the grass out of the mouth stick, blows it up chew and collects in the hopper at the back. There are two most common attachments or accessories.