DON My yard is around two acres with 70-80 trees & bushes to trim around. Too small to row crop but too large to manicure unless you really like yard work.
I'm going to go over most of the yard again this afternoon for the second time.
GERRY - The hydro in the 982 is in good shape, trunnion was repaired 5-6 yrs ago, unfortunately I didn't replace the cork gasket because I needed to get the thing back together. Replacing the cork gasket on a 982 is about FOUR times as much work as on a smaller CC. The 3-pt & rear PTO has to be removed to even get to the rear cover. Fluid & filter has about 150 hours on it. I use the 982 to pull the big dump trailer most of the time. Loaded with rock or dirt weighs 3000# and I've pulled up some slopes with no problem, half throttle and about half way up on the hydro. Pulling the cart off the sleeve hitch adapter on the 3-pt a load like that lifts the frt wheels off the ground if I'm not careful.
It's not so much that a hydro can't do those types of jobs, it's the fact I enjoy running the gear drives when doing them. When I get done mowing with the 982 the rearend is warm, very warm, but not quite hot, but after pulling the aerator for 3-4 hours the rearend of the 72 is cold.
For plowing snow and grading I normally raise the blade and continue forward till the blade empties snd turn around if I can, but even if I can't, I just stab the clutch, quick shift into reverse and I'm backing up. So, Yes, I do prefer to clutch & shift as opposed to simply moving a lever. Just so you know, my pickup with over 300,000 miles has a manual 5-spd, and my commuter car with 122,000 miles has a manual 6-spd. My last three trucks also had manual 4-spds, and for nine years my wife even drove a Mustang GT with a manual 5-spd. My wife finally put her foot down in '98 and said she wanted an automatic. So it's not just my tractors that I prefer manual trans on.