Farmer Helper 57" Ditch Bank Flail Mower Cat.I3pt 40hp~65hp (FH-AGL145) w/Hammer Blades Requires a Tractor. Not a standalone Unit.

Pros:Packed and shipped very well, though instead of welding the metal frame around the mower, nuts and bolts would be better. To unpack this you need to have something to cut through steel angle.Seems to be fairly heavy duty for this price point.Cut is decent.Cons:Very sparse instructions and missing a lot of key information. Calls to the seller was answered quickly and professionally though.I wish it would extend a little farther to the side of the tractor but I understand that is limited to the travel of the PTO shaft.Everything was loose. Be sure to tighten all nuts, screws, hydraulic fitting etc.I have not used this enough yet to decide whether I like it or not. This is my first flail mower and I purchased this mainly for the offset and am a little disappointed with that. I would at this point give the operation a 4 star but subtracted a point because of the instruction manual.**Update*** One starI've used this enough now to know that I hate the piece of manure. Hooking it up to the tractor is a job itself, upkeep and fighting it to cut properly takes up half the mowing time. Wish I never bought this.

I bought this mower a few months back and have used it for about 14 hours total run time. I have since found that many parts were loose on the mower. The worst was in one of the sheaves that drives the rotary drum. Several of the machine screws that attach it backed out due to under torquing, lack of thread lock, or both. The looseness of the sheave caused all three drive belts to fail. The only part that seemed to be over tightened was a cheap plastic washer used to seal the banjo fittings joining the hydraulic cylinders to the hose ends. I had to go out and buy copper washers to fix the problem. Other than the plastic washers, it seems to have well made parts and seems to mow as advertised when I'm not fixing assembly problems.

went together well had to tighten and tweak a few things be sure to use the gear oil check screw about middle of gear box mine took about 1 and 1/2 quart and greases all fittings points grease pto shaft / u joints did some bank mowing after snow melted works very well even with grass mashed down make sure you put the mower on a float valve I added 2th set of rear hydraulics float on a Kubota l4240 /cab /front loader around 5500 lbs this mower /weight ratio feels just right to me don't get one too heavy check your specs this betstco agl 145 is awesome

I bought one of these and only got a year's use out of it. I experienced the loose parts as other reviewers reported and cannot imagine why the unit would come from the manufacturer that way. Things I found frustrating....1) hydrolic hoses not long enough to reach control levers, I had to have extensions made,2) the cover over the belts got all cock-eyed when bank mowing an up hill grade (the cover would scrape ground and only a single set pin and bokt keeps it from moving),3) while they advertises it can cut up to 2" brush, it typically runs over and flattens the brush first which prevents the hammers fron reaching the brush. I have loads of scotch broom that would get "shaved" by the hamners but the main stalk would remain4) you cannit use a Quick Hitch with this vecayse they dont align. The flail mount is narrower than the quick hitch5) the flail gets beat up quickly and seems to suck up rocks no matter what height its set at. There are small aluminum flaps along the bottom edge that apparently prevent things from getting spit out forward. All of mine were bent to hell after first couple mows. Bottom line, mowing along rural, no paved, driveway theres going to be rocks, thing should be built better.On the poistive side, I thought it mowed weeds and grass great and I liked how far it reached out to the side. Changing hammers was easy, although I had to do it often cause rocks wreak havoc on them.