Hello I'm Austin Jarrett from Allett Mowers. I want to talk about using a cylinder mower for
mowing longer grass. A cylinder mower has been designed to produce a very low cut lawn and
what we do with a cylinder mower is cut short grass shorter. If you go away on the holiday
and you come back and your grass has grown and has become 3 or 4 inches long then the cylinder mower
is really not the ideal mower to mow that long grass. What happens is the front roller knocks
the grass down and then before the cylinder can get to the bottom of the grass to mow it it's
all still laid down. So what we do is offer in the box when you get the new machine this side
wheel kit. So what happens is we have to take off this front roller and then what we're going to do
is put on these wheels and what that will do is keep open the front of the mower so that we're
not knocking over the grass before we mow it. So let's look how to do that. So in the side wheel
kit came with your machine if I just open this up now I should end up with two plastic wheels
two axles, too short mm 8 screws and 2 spring washers. I'm also going to need two spanners,
a 13 millimetre open-ended or ring spanner and a 17 millimetre open-ended spanner. So
first I'm going to tip the mower back and it will just give me some access here to be
able to work on this front roller assembly. So I'm going to remove the front roller and
the spring tine assembly. So first thing I need to do is just to remove this little screw here
that holds the rake adjustment you can see the rake coming out of adjustment as soon
as I've done that and I'm going to remove the little 8 millimetre stud on both sides
and that just frees up the assembly here and that assembly can actually drop out.
Secondly I'm going to use my 17 millimetre spanner just to hold the axle while I then
use my 13 millimetre ring just to remove this screw. I'm going to do it on the other side as
well before I drop this assembly out so that I'm not struggling so much trying to hold it
while I'm trying to loosen off the other side and that will allow me just to remove the two
screws with my finger and then this assembly will come out. So there's my roller assembly
and my rake assembly removed. I'm just going to put back the two little screws here because
I don't want to lose those along with the spring washer that is part of that assembly.
So once I've done that I've now got my two wheels and my axles so the wheel is completely
symmetrical and I'm just going to push the axle in and I'm just going to make sure that this plastic
wheel turns freely on the axle and then I also have my screw and spring washer. So I'm simply
going to take the side that the axle came in from and I'm just going to put that exactly where the
roll was in fact I've just put them in the wrong way around I think this is best to go round this
way and I'm just going to use my 30 millimetre ring spanner just to tighten that back up. Same
again with the other side put my axle in I'm going to fit this to the outside where the
roller actually fits and just lock that up nice and tight. When I put this roller back
this does look unusual for the cylinder mower I still have all my height of cut mechanism so
when I adjust my height of cut at the back here these rollers just go up and down in exactly the
same way but now as I push the mower forward the roller isn't rolling over the grass before
I get chance to mow it and it will just do a better job of mowing longer grass.
There it is with the wheel kit on we're able to mow the long grass. The front roller doesn't
lay it down and you can shave it down and get back in control. Put the front roller
back on though because it's really important for part of your striping as soon as you're back in
control of your grass. Although I'd recommend if you've got a rotary mower use your rotary
mower instead this does get you out of a hole if it's just the only mower that you've got.
I hope that's helpful and you can see more details on our website at www.allett.co.uk