Anyone haul wood with a riding mower?

X-Raycer said:

This is my 2 year old Beast with the Mower Deck serviced & stored for the winter. The 30 hp, 900 lb. GT takes it with ease.
Scrap from Trash Dump in woods, 1-17-14 (2).jpg
I modified a 10 cu. ft. JD Dump Cart to carry double that. With the side boards it hold 1/5 of a cord.
Cutting with Modded Sawbuck- Spilitting Firewood with Tires, 12-28-13.jpg
And then my 20"x40" Cart that I use to haul the wood into my kitchen.
Cutting with Modded Sawbuck- Spilitting Firewood with Tires, 12-28-13 (9).jpg

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Does it really have 30 HP?

bigbarf48 said:

Thats a nice load there!

The trailer in this ad is a touch smaller though

Here she is, in all her rusty grey beauty:

View attachment 125620

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Bigbarf, your rig is almost identical to ours. When we moved into our house in 2012, my husband blew out the mower deck on a rock with the 80's vintage Bolens mower. We bought the same cart as you have. He removed the mower deck and mechanism, attached the cart and we've been using it ever since to haul wood. We're careful not to overfill it because we have some pretty steep hills on our property. At this point, we're looking to replace the old mower with a ATV, but it has done yeoman service and is still running, even though it sounds like sin.

andrewjoseph said:

I like using this combo than driving my truck into the woods . It keeps from scratching my truck up and gets around pretty well. I think 13 hp should be fine if its pretty flat.

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I just recently started to use my Exmark to move wood around. Easy to maneuver.

Use what you have!

Heres my JD mower/woodhauler.

Front hitch, very nice, I can see that being very useful I'll have to look into that.

Halligan said:

Heres my JD mower/woodhauler.View attachment 126243

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What do you use the front hitch for?

Jags said:

I was gonna go into my diatribe on the difference between mowers and garden tractors but I will save you the time.
Bottom line: a mower will actually move a fair amount if not abused. Keep the loads reasonable. A garden tractor is a whole 'nuther animal.
View attachment 125619

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I need a seat like that for my GT.
Mine's a lowboy......no back support to speak of.
GT gets used all year to plow snow, haul wood, and mow.

lookin good all.

i use a lawn tractor to move my splitter around and have a 4'x4' trailer that I can haul wood in.

traction is the big thing for me. lawn tires just don't cut it. thought about chains but I don't want to tear my lawn up too badly.

oh yeah and hills are a problem! one thing that did help was to add weights off the front, it helped to keep the nose down and allow me to steer.

I leave the chains on and mow.
No problem. I think the lawn likes the little bit of aeration they provide.
Use the GT to pull a 5x10' trailer loaded with Oak quite often.

Our old Bolens modified lawn tractor has knobbie tires on the back which were, doubtless, replacement tires. Thus far, traction hasn't been an issue. Then, too, we don't have to haul firewood very far and we don't get a great deal of snow and ice.

If you already have a lawn mower that's one thing....but if you are going to spend $$$ just to use one to pull wood around, I wonder if it is feasible to get an older ATV?? For the $250 you would spend on that 20-30 year old mower, for not much more you would be in the ballpark of a 20-30 year old ATV. Sure maybe just a 2WD one, but I'd take a 2WD ATV over a 2WD lawnmower.

If you are willing to do a little work, probably the same you'd end up doing to the lawnmower...you could have a new toy for cheap. Every spring I see people getting rid of decent 80's ATV's for $500 or so. They usually don't run but it might be something as simple as a gunked up carb. Most of them have torn seats or rough plastic fenders but you aren't worried about going mudding or hitting the sand dunes, just pulling wood.

Uh... prolly off topic but can any of you use a snow throwing attachment with your machines? We share use of a Cub Cadet 1515 with BIL next door (we haul reasonable loads of firewood with it all the time) and it just occurred to me that maybe that could be a possibility.

gzecc said:

What do you use the front hitch for?

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It's a whole lot easier to drive a trailer with a front hitch than back up with the hitch in the back.

bigbarf48 said:

anyone haul wood with a riding mower?

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I do not. Hope this helps.

gzecc said:

What do you use the front hitch for?

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I use it for moving my 5X10 trailer around as well as moving the log splitter. I have a grass collection system that is on the rear of the tractor during the summer so I can't use a rear hitch setup.

Firewood Bandit said:

It's a whole lot easier to drive a trailer with a front hitch than back up with the hitch in the back.

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That too.

13 hp is plenty. As others said its the drivetrain that you have to be concerned about. maybe wait for a cheap GT to come around? Maybe you spend a couple hundred more, but it may last much longer.

i made forks for my toro z16 zero turn ….300lbs of oak …no problem.

Lumberjack said:

traction is the big thing for me. lawn tires just don't cut it

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I had traction issues even mowing so I loaded the rear tires just like my farm tractor. Made a world of difference.

I mainly use an ATV and an old beat up dump cart for getting my logs out of the woods. I cut them in 4 foot lengths to get the out to my "wood" area in the drive way where I then cut them to length, split them, and start them drying. I have a JD X300 for mowing grass and it came with a plastic dump cart which I use for hauling dried splits to the woodshed for final stacking and drying. With mowers, you have to be careful which transmission you have. I didn't realize it when I bought it but my JD came with an "el cheapo" trans in it, and people are blowing them by trying to haul too much weight so I'm very careful about how much I haul at one time. If you're going to use your mower for hauling wood just check to be sure your transmission is up to the task. It seems the cheapy JD used in the X300 is a very commonly used trans by many different manufacturers. I did find a guy who sells "upgrade kits" for my X300 which comes with the trans, axle, and rims that JD used on their much better built X500. If and when mine blows I'll be buying the kit from him. Expensive, but worth it.

Yup, 13 HP will work for your purposes. The 13 hosses are there for mowing so towing a dump cart load of firewood will be fine.

The turf tires alone may not get the bite you need. If that's the case I'd recommend tire chains. I used our JD Sabre for hauling rounds out of the woodlot the first year, it worked great but couldn't get traction. So I got a pair of super lug Ag tires for it. Traction problem solved.

Before laying down yer cash, drive that mower around a bit. Make sure there's no shaking, vibration or weird noises coming from it. If it's in good shape and the dump cart comes with it, get it. I wouldn't suggest trying to pull logs with it but a cartload of wood at low drive speed shouldn't hurt it.

These dump carts are balanced pretty well - it's hard to load 'em wrong. Loaded evenly front to back, there should be little tongue weight. Wheel weights are available for your mower if you need it.

This is what I use: 20 horse power hydro, I have weights and chains I put on when hauling out wood and of course the mowing deck comes off I've never been able to over load it this tractor pulls everything out I've thrown at it.

My JD 210 can whip some loads of wood around! I can haul a 5X8 utility trailer filled with wood around with ease. The attachements you can pick-up for these garden tractors add value in many other ways as well.