Country Clippers are CRAP!
My dad bought a new Country Clipper in 2015. He put the fancy seat on it (no armrest risers included, so they're useless, and no extension for the joystick, either.) Got the Power Lift deck (that takes an engineering degree to engage), the safety step, and the grab bar, because he was 83-84 when he bought it. His hobby has been mowing since 2015, so the hour meter showing 260 hrs doesn't seem right. He mowed AROUND his 7 acre crop field behind the house, the railroad right of way across the road (the city recently started doing that, his neighbor's yard, an acre patch, also far behind the house, plus around his house, numerous buildings, vehicles, etc. He would spend 5-6 hrs a week mowing. Now that he's 90, his health is slipping, so we took on the task of cleaning up and repairing it to sell.
My God! If there was a simple way to do a task on this machine, Clipper went out of its way to avoid it! This is a Rube Goldberg contraption. We just spent 2 hrs taking off the drive belt, putting on the new one, and discovering the lift system is out of alignment---a pin and hook assembly will not stay in the hole/slot, so the entire deck depends on the other pin/assembly to lift it. It pops constantly while lifting. We have yet to get the belt on the engine pulley, so took a break before we took a sledge hammer to it. Be advised---we aren't novices at doing mechanical repairs. We just got a 1967 Case 850 crawler/dozer running and working yesterday. Had 2 cylinders rebuilt, took the valve assembly out and put new seals and orings in it, flushed the fuel tank and replaced 2 fuel filters (it has 3, but we're going to run it awhile to clean out the lines).
We replaced the clutch on the Clipper, because it would bog down in heavy grass. There is no local Clipper shop worth a damn, so we took it on. Ran it yesterday, still didn't seem right, so talked to an older mechanic/dealer for Encore. He suggested the belt. Took it off, it was stretched. If that doesn't fix it, we'll be looking at electrical problems. Sorry if this post ruffles some clipper fan feathers, but my Grasshopper front deck is so much easier to work on!
My God! If there was a simple way to do a task on this machine, Clipper went out of its way to avoid it! This is a Rube Goldberg contraption. We just spent 2 hrs taking off the drive belt, putting on the new one, and discovering the lift system is out of alignment---a pin and hook assembly will not stay in the hole/slot, so the entire deck depends on the other pin/assembly to lift it. It pops constantly while lifting. We have yet to get the belt on the engine pulley, so took a break before we took a sledge hammer to it. Be advised---we aren't novices at doing mechanical repairs. We just got a 1967 Case 850 crawler/dozer running and working yesterday. Had 2 cylinders rebuilt, took the valve assembly out and put new seals and orings in it, flushed the fuel tank and replaced 2 fuel filters (it has 3, but we're going to run it awhile to clean out the lines).
We replaced the clutch on the Clipper, because it would bog down in heavy grass. There is no local Clipper shop worth a damn, so we took it on. Ran it yesterday, still didn't seem right, so talked to an older mechanic/dealer for Encore. He suggested the belt. Took it off, it was stretched. If that doesn't fix it, we'll be looking at electrical problems. Sorry if this post ruffles some clipper fan feathers, but my Grasshopper front deck is so much easier to work on!
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