FRUSTRATED! Rhino TW84 shredder Long post

Well fellas, usually I"m not one to rant and rave on this forum I just usually keep it pretty simple.
We"ll here"s what"s going on. Year ago, at a farm auction I bought a Rhino TW84 3point mount rotary mower. That"s a very heavy duty rough cut shredder/mower. It"s got like a 145HP rated gear box etc. It was represented as missing the front 1/2 of the PTO shaft. (it had the slip clutch and back half to gear box). The machine had it"s normal wear and tear with faded paint and a few dents, but no welds or bends. All the chain guarding was in place etc. The mower was sitting down in a bunch of ice/snow at the auction, basically froze down because I couldn"t brush away any of the snow ice. So......I didn"t look underneath it. BIG MISTAKE. Anyway, I bought it, brought it home and set it off, for a rainy day project. Well just got into it. Here"s what I found, broken output shaft from under the gearbox, missing blades and stump jumper blade holder. So, I crack open the gearbox and all the gearing looks good and bearings looked okay. I ordered the broken output shaft from Rhino $250 bucks, blades $70, stumpjumper blade holder $540 OUCH! Now comes the bad one....front half of PTO, dealer tells me $220 for complete front half of shaft, I order it. I get it, it won"t mate up with back half. Dealer tells me I have to buy complete shaft all as one from tractor u-joint clear back including slip clutch....$1700. I tell him no way. Dealer orders me just the shaft, guard, and u-joint with tractor end coupler and u-joint cross for me to assemble. Cost....$580 OUCH!!!! What"s the deal? They told me I could get the assembled shaft for $220, now I have to assemble the parts myself for $580??? Long story short, I now have a shredder that"s worth maybe $1500 but I"ve got $1440 in parts plus the $450 I paid for it. I guess it"s buyer beware huh? I wanted to do this on a shoestring budget, but no dice. Live and learn. I now have a gallon of Rhino orange paint coming for it and a decal kit. Sometimes it makes me tired, trying to have something nice, without paying new price for it, but instead doing it with sweat equity, and still getting every nickle and dime beat out of you.

A LOT of us have been there and done that. SOME of us have gotten away with having good deals. THE REST of us have to turn junk into something close to a new unit. But only to YOU will the satisfaction of your work pay off when you use it. You really have to look at it that way, or else you'll be dwelling on "damn, I could've bought that nice mower on the dealer's lot for the same price."

It's a lesson - some of us never do this auction stuff again, and the rest continue to resurrect the dead.

I know i've bought many projects over the years, and some of that stuff is being sold right now, simply because I know i'm tired of dumping money into them.

At least once you fix it up, you'll have a nice machine, even if you have more into it than you planned. I call deals like that paying the stupid tax. Been there done that too many times.

You have learned a valuable lesson. Dont buy it if you cant really see all aspects of it clearly. A lot os stuff is brought to auction because the seller knows exactly how much it would take to restore it. On a mower, always look under it at stump jumper. Turn the pto shaft by hand to "feel" if gearbox turns smoothly. Wiggle all the unjoints and feel for slack. Remember it is bought "as is where is" so you assume all the risks. Tom

And one other thing to keep in mind...

There are ALWAYS cheaper places to find parts than the brand dealer. Probably could have saved a lot of your bucks going outside the Rhino dealer, and buying "will fit" replacement parts.

I don't mean to be nasty & there are those rare 'finds;, but $450 for a TW-84 was a tiny clue.
Sorry it wasn't the 'find' you wanted. I do know the disappointment.

That's the thing with rotary cutters, they're a piece of equipment that tend to get hammered by owners who exceed the limitations of same or they constantly encounter unforseen obstacles like large rocks, stumps, and all kinds of assorted junk etc. in the work area by operators who don't care or do it accidentally. New ground has to be checked thoroughly in my opinion.

I think with this kind of implement you absolutely have to inspect carefully,(definitely a mistake to not have been able to see underneath the one you bought, however all is not lost by any means ) though I realize a pre-auction inspection won't be too friendly to opening up a gearbox and or anything similar. Only thing I can think of is dipping a magnet into the filler hole or taking a lube sample to see what kind of metal particulates or pieces exist.

On the other hand, seems like the gear box and components were in-tact, so a careful cleaning and flush, + the parts you had to replace, you might be into it just the same as the one listed in the link. Additionally, you now have been through it, so you know what you have and once you paint er up and and take er to the field, you still have accomplished your objective.

If the price of the 2 TW-84's listed on that site reflect an average price of a previously owned but in-tact and useable TW-84, then you still bought it right, maybe you did not get a steal, like you hoped, and those kinds of deals just don't happen as much as we think they should anyway. You have your time into it, but at least it's done right, sure the work is not easy, and dropping more money always sucks, but you did far better than buying er for $1900, then having to spend that same money. I think one has to make a judgement call after carefully inspecting an auction item, then bid accordingly, knowing the potential exists for significant additional cost to make necessary repairs. Rhino is a good quality manufacturer at least the older stuff I've seen seems to hold up, I have an old SE-6 that has certainly taken some abuse before I owned it, but 7 years later, and cutting 20 acres a year, just the usual repairs and maintenance, I keep the lube changed in the gear box, sharpen and tighten the blades, heck I even ran over the darned tail wheel with it, darned thing fell off once at dusk, I missed it and of course on the last pass, I nailed it, survived that and even the seals on the gear box don't leak....... well they have not yet ! . I caught a good size round rock/hard head once too, sheared the shoulder bolts and dropped both blades, I dunno, but Servis-Rhino sure seems like a durable rotary cutter mfr.
TW 84

Happens to most of us. Had a similar deal a few years ago. Found a very good 14 ft BWA disk with excellent blades/tires for $500. A supervisor said that was too much and offered me his same sized BWA for $100. Bought it sight unseen and when I went to pick it up, what a surprise. He did tell me it needed one new bearing, but didn't tell me that he had run the disk without the bearing until the loose bearing race had worn thru the spool. Also didn't tell me about the other missing/broken parts, poor tires, and the massive frame cracking. Hard to believe someone could tear up something that badly. Spent well over $1000 repairing the damage. Couldn't say much because he was a supervisor.

BTDT

But if it is any help, at least you know for sure what you have and what kind of service you can expect from it. Just stinks you have to do all the labor and pay for the parts to get there.