Hi Nick,
as you have worked out it ain't easy, there is nothing there that will do it all. Be careful with the 4 strokes on sloping ground as they could oil starve the motor.
Hi Norm,
Yes, I'll perhaps pop a few photos up but the main part of the 'back' is sloping but likely not bad enough to cause 4 strokes issues - there's some bits down from this that I suspect WOULD - but it's so tricky to get in there that I always do with either the light and go anywhere Mastercut 460 2 stroke or just my Shindaiwa trimmer.
I appreciate the suggestions on the exotic reenine options that might work - personally I love the idea of that type of thing but alas not being as talented as yourself often issues pop up and before you know it a quick tweak of this old gear becomes a 'What was I thinking' moment - which hopefully isn't the case with those 550 Pro's but we will see.
Haha it makes it worse that my wife will chastise me why I'm trying to use older gear and insist that it's simpler to just go and buy a brand new top tier mower - I try to explain to her that it's not as simple as that hence to a degree this thread as it atleast gives me a fall back IF I can't sort this currently motley bunch out....but we'll see on that.
G'day N1KKO,
I read your intro and I hope we shall get some valuable real world experiences from your personal proving ground you just acquired.
Hi Mowerfreak, haha yes happy to be a guineapig of sorts though not sure I'm going to have a heck of a lot of great info but will do my best.
There was mention a couple of years ago on here about some relatively simple and robust SP system they stopped bringing here and was brought here only in dribs and drabs by individual importers under another name.
It had an exposed and ready to access drive.
Thats interesting - yes I've read a bunch of threads on SP systems and it's logical that they're all going to have issues but which one is the best, well thats hard to tell.
I really thought the 3 speed Hondas would have been - but that seems to be very much not the case. Over at one of the Mowing forums they seemed to think that the Hydrostatic drive in the HRX217 is the best choice....they'd done a years use and compared the two, being lawn contractors thats a huge sample size and likely the same as a lifetime for a consumer - but their opinion was that the 217 was the better mower than the 216.
I don't know if folks here have much run with those - but seems while it's been out in the USA for nearly a decade, basically unchanged it's only new here. I can't think of another walkbehind that uses a Hydrostatic drive, which from all reports is superior and more reliable tech and well used through rideons and ZT etc.
ALas the makers are very secretive about what they use as their SP systems and thus as a consumer its very hard to figure out whats viable and whats likely to die an early death.
Is funny you mention an 18" cut as part of me thinks that even though I am mowing a solid acre that I should also consider 19" SP's as while they obviously increase the mow time over a 21"+ - they will be lighter and also give more options....where the 21" SP brigade are a bunch of big heavy buggers. So might have to reconsider them as compromise seems the name of the game.
