I bought a new reel mower

Ajouté : 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Well, I've been on a spending spree lately and decided to pick up a 1021.

[00:00:07]I saw it online for a price that wasn't $7,000 or whatever they normally go for and decided to jump on it. $200 pallet shipping. Uh, pretty reasonable. So, this is a 2021 U. There's a barcode under here. similar place as the as the um GM1000. That one's actually on the frame, but this one's more up on the on the handle here. I've only mowed with it uh twice, once and a half maybe. I don't know. Haven't mowed with it too much. Um had a friend over, messed around with it a little bit, did a couple uh a couple stripes with it, but um haven't used it.

[00:00:50]I guess I done the backyard a little bit as well. I haven't used it a ton, but I wanted to capture some of my initial thoughts as opposed to like a, you know, I've researched and read everything.

[00:01:00]That's not the case. I've kind of taken like a purist approach to it. Um, where I haven't really looked at the manual, haven't really watched any videos on it, kind of just had it show up. So, this is basically just a reaction video. Um, going to show you some of the basic controls I've learned, what I like about it, what I don't like about it. And that's all going to change uh over the coming weeks as you guys watch me uh use this mower a little more often. But um I guess we'll just go over controls and what I know about the controls. I have learned. Um so everything on the engine is pretty straightforward. Honda Honda GX120 that focuses. You should be able to see it. Um gas choke straightforward there. Um, I don't know if this is on all of them or just mine, but this has been This cap has been really finicky with me. My friend could not get it on.

[00:01:52]And like you got to I don't know. It's just kind of nuanced. You got to put it in the this side first. You can't you can't just pop it on like this like you know my MLAN or my GM1000 or I don't know literally any other gas tank on a small engine. I don't know. GX120 is pretty popular. I don't have anything with a GX120, but it's popular and so I'm probably that's probably just a me problem. Um, that's everything up there. Got the lights, which is a cool upgrade. Um, but those are on the GM1000 as well. My my GM1000 does not have that though. Um, something I missed initially. It took me a while. The thing that took me the longest to figure out is this right here. Neutral.

[00:02:36]So, you can slide it around.

[00:02:39]take the brake off and I can roll it. It rolls way easier than the GM1000. This rolls somewhere between the GM1000 and McLean. Like this will actually roll down my driveway with a brake on, which makes it a lot easier to maneuver. Um, I don't mind the GM1000, but if I was someone who was like 70 years old and looking for a real mower, this like the ability to roll easily, I imagine would be a factor. But anyways, that's neutral. And then, oh, you got to take the brake off, I believe, to there. Then it's in drive. It shifted in neutral, which I would I thought that was kind of weird because, you know, I drive a a standard transmission Jeep and I always put it in gear when I like park on a hill or something. I don't know. I think it's like a bad habit or something, but it helps it from rolling away. And so, I think the same thing with this on a on a pallet. You put it in gear so it doesn't roll around. But anyways, and the pallet, the guy came in, dropped it right in my driveway on a couple pallets. Um, it was a double stack pallet and just kind of put a couple 2x4s out and rolled it off myself, but that was pretty handy. Didn't need to have the shipper was concerned about having a dock or something to unload, but that was not an issue at all. It came just like my u my came brand new where they dropped it in my driveway on a pallet.

[00:03:53]Um, something that a lot of you guys know about that I probably should know more about is this doohickey right here.

[00:04:00]Other things, basic controls. It's kind of nice up here. Everything is lights.

[00:04:05]Um, these are kind of like switches that you would see on a boat. Boats pretty much primarily have this. I don't know what else have switches like this, but that's what it reminds me of. Looks just like a boat. Uh, that switch, and then of course, start, stop, brake, squeeze this, you squeeze the brake, and if you want to hold it, you pop that down.

[00:04:23]Super straightforward. Got throttle. So, you press it, throttle up and back. And to engage the reel is see you. Focus on this right there.

[00:04:36]Like that. That's how you engage the reel. What else? There's one other thing I was going to Oh, yeah. This. So, you squeeze this instead of the the GM1000 has the uh uh kind of the stick that hangs out somewhere around right here. Um, this you don't. So, you just kind of squeeze that and then that pushes everything forward. Like I said, uh the GM100 uh this um lever here is located. Let me focus here. Doesn't matter, but it's right there. Um even it's not going to focus. So, things are kind of moved around a little bit, but it's not that bad. I like these controls. This is going to take a while to get used to.

[00:05:18]This is going to take a long while to get used to. I don't know if I can lubricate this. It's obviously squeaking a little bit, but I'm wondering what could be done with the spring to make it easier. I could imagine, you know, I'm only mowing for whatever, 20 minutes or half hour, whatever it is. If I was using this all day on a golf course, 8 hours, I would probably get tired of of pinching this. That's kind of like the GM100.

[00:05:39]Uh, you know, you kind of just pop it and then you can do do the whip turns, right, where you just bring it to the end and whip it around and you never really touch never touch the clutch the whole time. So, anyways, that's kind of a a rundown of the controls.

[00:05:52]Now, what I'm going to talk about is kind of some of the differences in terms of um one thing that's really different that is probably the biggest difference I could find other than like the obvious controls. Oh, you have this thing here of course underneath. Um I can't remember. It's I probably need two hands for this, but you can adjust this to be higher and lower. I think that's the lowest it goes. It was comfortable on me. I'm 6'2.

[00:06:19]Um, probably could be higher. But that brings me into the kind of the main issue I'm having right now.

[00:06:27]The engine, everything is centered over the drum. And so because of that, it tips and and and wiggles back and or teeter totters back and forth. Um, and so I mean with with the slightest of as you can see, it was going to fall over right there. Just just from the lightest of bump. Um, I don't know how I can really show you how tippy it really is. There it goes. Um, and so I I worry about extending this up higher than the center of gravity. It's going to move over there, right? And it's going to tilt tip easier. To counter that, you're supposed to use the basket, but I don't like mowing with the basket. I don't like emptying it all the time. I like to just get out here, mow real quick. There's not a ton of clipping on PGR and and you know just move on to the next thing and get on to edging which desperately needs to be done. So I'm not really big into using a basket unless I'm scalping.

[00:07:20]So but when you use the basket it counters it and it's it's great. It it balances perfectly. So I need to kind of look into that. On the GM1000 you could shift the motor around a little bit on the mounts um to slide it back and forth. I imagine you can do that with this. Like I said, this is a kind of a first reaction video to a GM uh 1021. Uh I imagine I'll look at this look at the manual over the next couple days when I get a chance and uh and see that I could shift the engine around. So that's that's what I'm hoping anyways because that's kind of be my biggest peeve is um yeah, I mean you basically right now when I'm mowing I basically have to keep pressure um pushing up. So this this kind of it's like this. I kind of mow like basically I hold it here and mow keeping that front wheel down because as you apply as you as you squeeze this the front end pops up. Even if you go gently and feather it, it still happens a handful of times. That will get better as I use it likely, but there's got to be something I can do there. Otherwise, I could customize a weight to go on the hooks and there's so many things I could do. There's so many upgrades and things I'll be looking into that I've I've uh kind of done with the GM1000 and I have hundreds of videos on that as you guys know. Um and so we'll get into it with this. I would like to take off the axles here. I already put some um oh PE buster. Is that what it's called?

[00:08:44]I can't remember the name of it. But to basically um break those free. So put some lubricant on there. Hopefully loosen it. might need some heat. Um, and then I'll hit it with uh hit it with the cordless uh impact wrench is what I'll use on that. Um, should be should be enough to pop that off. Maybe a little bit of a torch and whatnot. On my GM 10000 video when I did that, I had it took me a while. I had to use the torch um extensively to get it loosened up. But given this thing is 5 years old, I'm optimistic that it won't be that difficult. But it's been it's running so great. It's so nice to going from a 1998 or 99 up to a 2020 one. Just happens to be the model 21.

[00:09:35]Trying not to let that it had my had me second guessing here. I was like, "No, it's the model." No, it's also the year.

[00:09:40]It's also 21. Uh making that jump for whatever 22 plus years. It's just it's nice to have stuff that's not broken and it it mows like a newer mower where it doesn't mow um you know like a 20 something year old mower where things are breaking on it and parts are spotty plus expensive so it's not even worth it putting it on an old mower. Um it's nice to to have that upgrade.

[00:10:01]Um other than that everything is is pretty decent. Very minor rust on it. I mean I don't know where uh it spent most of its life. It came uh from up north, but it's not like this would have been out in the in the in the winter elements or anything. So, but anyways, that's kind of my overview.

[00:10:23]Apologies for the lack of info, but that's just I want I wanted to capture this raw reaction because if I didn't and went on to learn everything, I would forget this raw reaction and I I make a video and I wouldn't, you know, for example, complain about it tipping. I imagine we'll resolve that, you know, as you squeeze this pops up so easily. Or or when you take the the basket off and empty the clippings, often times if you don't position this perfectly on the on a level pl on a level uh ground, I guess it's because greens are generally more level than than backyard or residential uh areas. It's very tippy once you take that basket off. Like it I don't know, two three times already taking the basket off the first time mowing um it was tipping on me. So anyways, that's all I got for now. You guys have any questions or things you want to see, let me know. I'm not an expert, so obviously by this video, but um I'll try my best to to get some content out, but wanted to give you guys an update in the meantime.