Fun field changes

Paul F. Grayson

The most valuable suggestions come from frontline workers who see opportunities to save money, eliminate waste and improve the final product. The quickest way to get another valuable suggestion from an employee or fellow worker is to use the one they gave you and give them credit for their contribution to the team effort. Most of the field changes I do are by special request from the guys who are actually using the equipment on a regular basis.

Luckily, I have the authority, tools, materials and parts to make these improvements to out-of-warranty machines. Here are a few of the changes I’ve done to Jacobsen LF 3400 fairway mowers entrusted to my care, however, these suggestions are applicable to pretty much any make or model of mower.

Every driver seems to want the same things:

1. A sweater basket;
2. A cup holder;
3. Lights; and more recently
4. A power outlet on their mower.
    

Jacobsen addressed the first two on the LF 3400 Fairway mower, and the third one partially. Rather than the sweater basket it has a well behind the driver’s seat where the operator can put rain gear and things they find on the course. While it came with headlights, I have added, at the request of the drivers, a light in the back.

Everyone has cellphones now, and because radios are both expensive and a challenge to keep in working order, we have abandoned the use of radios except for a few tasks. Drivers on loud mowers – or me in the shop making noise – can send and receive text messages. Operators can contact, no matter what the noise level, for help getting out of a ditch, obtaining a can of fuel or things falling off their mowers. I can text them when the machine I am working on is ready for them, and the message gets through no matter how loud the background noise is.

This increased use of their cellphones means that they need a power outlet on their mower to keep their cellphone and music player charged. While new mowers come with power outlets, older ones need to be retrofitted. I just finished installing the last power outlet, now all of the Crown Golf Club’s vehicles are outfitted with power for the 2015 mowing season.
 

After years of working with Jacobsen LF 3400 mowers and every so often getting my fingers mashed between the hood and the fuel tank and other pinch points, I finally realized that I should put a handle on the hood to indicate to me and others where the safe place to put your hand is when wrestling with the large plastic engine cover.

My bin of overhead door parts had a garage door handle in it that I mounted on the plastic hood with a steel backer plate from the scrap metal pile to reinforce it. I mounted the handle on the service side of the mower, which is the side that you can reach nearly everything you need to when servicing the mower. I use that handle every day of the mowing season and smile each time.

In the spring and fall, I get requests from the drivers for heated seats and heated steering wheels. These requests are usually made in person while they are in the shop to warm up. Looking into the blue faces of shivering drivers desperately trying to get warm makes me think what they really need is a cab on their mower.

Paul F. Grayson is the Equipment Manager for the Crown Golf Club in Traverse City, Mich., a position he’s held for the past decade. Previously, he spent 8½ years as the equipment manager at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa. Prior to that, he worked as a licensed ships engine officer sailing the Great Lakes and the oceans of the world.