Assembling A John Deere 7-Bushel Rear Bagger
Posted on October 9, 2008 – 6:57 pm by admin
I must say, this John Deere ride-on mower has been a real treat to work with. What once took half a day to do, now takes a mere 45 minutes. I cut at 3.5 inches and everything is working out smoothly. Also, I now longer sweat like a pig while mowing the lawn. Well, the hillside in the front still needs to be mowed with the push-mower, so there is a whole heck of a lot of sweating and swearing at that one.
These days, the issue isn’t so much mowing the lawn, but picking up the leaves. Back in the day, I would just mow over the leaves and hope for the best. I actually liked doing it. I love the sound of the leaves getting all crunched up and shooting out of the side of the mower. Well, with joy, sometimes comes pain. All Winter and once Spring rolls around, all those piles of shredded up leaves are still on the lawn. The create a bunch of dead spots.
The grass clippings from the previous (and current) season create what is called “lawn thatch.” If you care about the health of your lawn and care about what it looks like, thatch is something you are going to want to deal with.
With all this in mind, I ran down to the local John Deere dealer this afternoon to pick up a shiny new 7-bushel rear bagger for the ride-on mower. I have wanted this for a while, but with the onslaught of leaves falling from the trees, a little mini-fire was lit under my butt.
John Deere logo
John Deere dealer
The rear bagger came unassembled and took about a half hour to put together on the back of the mower. I decided to take photos for all my loyal readers to enjoy. Heck you never know…someone might actually “Google” how to put together a 7-bushel rear bagger for a John Deere X300 and my site may pop up. I’m such a genius.
John Deere 7-bushel rear bagger for x300 mower
Here are the pics with some short captions…
Rear of x300. This is why I got the x300 - heavier frame for attachments.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper assembly.
Installing hopper.
Installing hopper.
Installing hopper.
John Deere X300 with rear bagger.
John Deere X300 rear bagger chute.
John Deere X300 rear bagger chute.
See, wasn’t that exciting? Ok, I will admit that after posting these photos, I understand that not all of you may be as excited as I am. Well, maybe this will do the trick. After setting everything up and mowing the whole lawn, the place is now leaf free. The lawn looks great. I can’t even believe how easy it was. I dumped about 12 bags worth of grass clippings and leaves and that made me feel good.
Oh yeah, one more reason to catch your grass clippings is because the weeds on your lawn keep coming back because of their seeds. If you catch your clippings, you reduce (theoretically) the amount of weeds on your lawn. I made that one up myself, but I think it makes sense.
8 Responses to “Assembling A John Deere 7-Bushel Rear Bagger”
By Bill on Oct 13, 2008 | Reply
So I am about to pull the trigger on the same mower and bagger you are talking about. I have read that the tube leading up to the rear bagger gets clogged. What is your experience when picking up dry leaves and grass?
Thanks,
Bill
By jayadmin on Oct 13, 2008 | Reply
I got the bagger to do just that…pick up leaves. I would say that out of 16 bags emptied, I had the tube clog once. But, that was only because I went through a pretty hairy high grass area.
I would recommend this setup. I have not experienced any negatives about them and I am actually enjoying doing the leaves and cutting the grass a heck of a lot more than I thought I would.
It’s a wonderful thing to be able to ride around and after a half hour look at a nice, clean lawn with no leaves on it.
By Lance on Jun 5, 2009 | Reply
Just bought a x304 a few weeks ago and the bagger worked perfect. It was amazing how much it picked up…until now. Nothing changed, it just started blowing grass around the left side of the hopper lid and out of the right air exhaust. I was completely covered in grass. I had to stop mowing several times to get the grass off of me. Have you had any trouble with this? Any suggestions?
By admin on Jun 6, 2009 | Reply
It sounds like you may have mowed in wet grass or something. If you had, the wet grass may be lining the actual bags, not letting the air through. Air needs to flow through those “mesh” bags in order for the grass to collect properly.
Try taking a hose and cleaning those bags out nice and thoroughly.
If that isn’t the issue, try looking down the chute (bagging tube) to see if you have something clogging it.
Let me know what you find.
By Kathy Burns on Jul 8, 2009 | Reply
Boy I wish I had googled this prior to putting together bagger. The only problem I ran into though was that the support bar’s predrilled hole did not line up the the bagger’s frame
By Steve Rogers on Jul 28, 2009 | Reply
I have this setup on my X304. As delivered from the dealer it did not work well. When I ordered my X304 with the bagger the dealer neglected to put the high lift blades on the mower. It only had standard blades from the factory. The dealer would not own up to this being his problem, so I had to pay for him to pick it up and install the high lift blades.
Now the bagging is excellent. I get an occasional plug, but it is when the grass is damp and when I try to mow too long grass too fast. I have a long thin pole I poke down the chute from inside the open open hopper to loosten a clog. Parts of the clog drop down on the driveway with each push. Then swish underneath the raised deck for the pushed back clog. Cleans fairly easily.
Then you must learn about the indicator. The basic design is OK, but then comes the sticky grass, which sticks to the paddle in the airflow, making it heavier, and falsely indicating lower air flow. You must clean the paddle frequently. That means disassembly of the indicator. Take off only the two screws on the paddle side of the indicator and pop up the top part of the indicator. This will allow you to pop out the flag/paddle and clean it off with a scraper (knife or screwdriver). Clean the pivot area of all grass clippings and reassemble. Just snap it together leaving the two screws off. Easer to open next time. I generally clean the indicator flag at least once per mowing of my 1/4 acre. It’s pretty easy to do now that I know about it.
Also, I always use plastic contractor bags in the fabric hopper except when I’m chopping leaves. No problem with air flow if you have the correct blades.
By Pieter on Oct 16, 2009 | Reply
Hi,
Since these catchers and baggers are so expensive, I am looking at building my own. Any tips/ideas?