Stalled my mower

[JHZR2]

I have a small flathead mower. I had a patch of grass get way long, like knee-high. Stalled the motor from it, but it was bad. Bad as in the clump of grass wedged in so tight I had to pull really hard to get it out.

Every engine has some level of torque that will stall it. And I'm sure this indicates that my blade isn't sharp enough.

But should I do anything else because of this?

Thanks!

 

[Bgallagher]

Did you service the engine for the season? If not it is worth changing the oil, plug and air filter. Have the blade sharpened and give it another crack.

In regards to cutting the tall grass you might have to give it a few passes. One at the highest setting and go down from there. It will take time but you wont kill your mower and you will have nice results.

 

[Drew99GT]

How much horsepower does it have? Low HP old flathead lawnmower engines don't have much power. My 30+ year old Craftsman with a Briggs will stall every 30 seconds in knee high grass if I'm not careful! Nothing to worry about; you just have to take it slow to keep the engine running. This is with a perfectly sharp blade.

 

[NHGUY]

Most of the old flathead Briggs are 2-3.5 hp engines(back in the 60s you were faced with 1-1.5 hp jobs).Not very powerful,and you need to run full throttle in any grass build up at all.

 

[Pablo]

Move to the PNW. I stall my Honda at full RPM all the time.

The grass gets so high with no sun breaks. I swear whatever climate we are changing to, this place is a godo jungle!!

 

[Nick R]

Pshhhh, I stall it occasioanlly, especially with the leaves. It's 100% fine I garuntee it.

 

[Donald]

Trade the flathead mower in for a Kubota diesel tractor and BrushHog. A BrushHog can take anything up to 4" diameter scrub trees.

An old joint compound bucket in the grass was no match for my BrushHog.

 

[01rangerxl]

If the mower is due for a tune up, that may reduce stalling. Other than that and a blade sharpening, going to a larger engine or larger mower is the only solution. Grass that tall is going to get a lot of small mowers though.

My ancient (at least 20 years old) B&S 3.5HP push mower was stalling in thick grass and taking 3-5 pulls to start. I changed the air filter, plug, and oil and it was back to starting on the first pull and stalling in thick grass was greatly reduced.

 

[JR]

i hear you donald my friend hog's my 3.5 acre lot and 4.5 acres of surrounding neighbors for me two time a year, can you guess his mowing time?, 90-95minutes. he used his boses tractor. it is a cat track drive with a 625hp cat, running a tri-deck 16.5ft cut. chaines off to chained down 50minutes. he hit 2 tire/rim combos from a escort. he didnt even know. he hit a 16.5" ford budd rim no tire bogged downs like a second just enough load to blow some coal out the stack and it throwed it like a baseball about 40ft.
that horsepower.

kc

 

[Errtt]

Knock down 1st with a good weed whacker then clean up with a sharp blade mower

 

[yonyon]

Hmm.... three ideas come to mind.
-cut slower
-use a more powerful mower
-plant some gardoons and wait for trespassers to trample the grass while stealing your gardoons

 

[tommygunn]

Done the same. Mowed some nasty thick grass but it was basically forward a foot, back a foot, forward a foot, back a foot, constantly trying to grind down an impossible pile of grass.

Using the discharge chute helps too.

But completely bringing it to a stop, probably fine, but don't make a habit of it. Definitely isn't a big help to your crankshaft seals. But I've never heard of it killing a mower.

Hitting concrete or something and causing a dead stop? Different story...

 

[Jeepster_nut]

Originally Posted By: yonyon
Hmm.... three ideas come to mind.
-cut slower
-use a more powerful mower
-plant some gardoons and wait for trespassers to trample the grass while stealing your gardoons


Or do the more logical thing and cut it before it gets knee high.

The old saying comes to mind here: Theres never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.

 

[Texan4Life]

I stall push mowers all the time... the only time it was a problem was when I had a fuel leak (got tired of fixing it) and when I tried restarting it, the engine back fired... yeah it caught on fire

but I really hated that push mower.

 

[Mamala Bay]

Originally Posted By: Jeepster_nut
Originally Posted By: yonyon
Hmm.... three ideas come to mind.
-cut slower
-use a more powerful mower
-plant some gardoons and wait for trespassers to trample the grass while stealing your gardoons


Or do the more logical thing and cut it before it gets knee high.

The old saying comes to mind here: Theres never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.


Just about says it!

Knee high grass hmmm how can one not notice ill maintenance ... really it doesn't look good and ...

Even a high end diesel mower would bog down? If you cut the green stuff off you might kill the grass with that height. I'd opt a weed trimmer or bush cutter to bring the heights down first.

To try to solve a problem that created a problem ... One becomes a weed in his garden...old line goes!

 

[TFB1]

Originally Posted By: NHGUY
Most of the old flathead Briggs are 2-3.5 hp engines(back in the 60s you were faced with 1-1.5 hp jobs).Not very powerful,and you need to run full throttle in any grass build up at all.


Where did you buy your engines??? Even back in the late '50s the B&S vertical shaft rotary mower engines were 2¼-2¾Hp... The 60s brought the 3Hp versions & 3½Hp were common in the 70s & 80s...

My worn out '81 B&S 3½Hp engine would about stall if you pushed it near any grass above your ankle, was a pain to deal with... The 5.5Hp Honda that replaced it on the same Snapper deck, laughs at grass twice that high...

 

[gman2304]

nothing wrong with your mower, but yes,mow more often.....sorry! G-man