Finish mower spindle bearings

IchabodCrayne · Jul 19, 2018

Might be a bad bearing shifting a pulley out of line.
Had that issue with a snow blower once.

WranglerX · Jul 20, 2018

Something interesting on mow deck of my JD Riding mower.... Originally had sealed bearings... JD replacement spindles at about $50 each, aftermarket about $26 each for "no names".... Original JD spindles had no grease zerks, after market has zerks... Opened a recently replaced spindle with zerk, hmmm, double sealed bearing... WHAT am I greasing?..... After looking at assembly I can buy new bearings for about $8 each (2 per spindle) save about $10 a spindle (over after market price) ..... Think I am going to either go with single seal bearings or pull or at least drill a few small holes on inside seal so I can ensure grease in bearings.....

And that's my story... Deck rebuild will be early fall project ....

Dale

tmajor · Jul 20, 2018

The whole spindle thing, seems to be a "toss up"!

My Woods ZTR has 600+ hours on the original belts and bearings. ... no grease fittings and they run cool.
So, I've got the Nachi bearings in place, everything spins free. I mowed about 20 minutes in 8" grass and the pulleys were fairly hot, when I finished. The only thing, that I notice, is the longest span of "free belt" does quiver a bit and the tension spring is continually flexing/contracting, I'm thinking, maybe another idler pulley in that longest stretch of belt. ... But, it never needed it before! ?? Baffling. ... Maybe, the tension spring has gotten weak. ??

Agvg · Jul 21, 2018

If bearings fail frequently it is probably something that are killing them, 2rs should be able to work in very dirty conditions without failing.

tmajor · Jul 21, 2018

I'm thinking, the belt needs more tension. I can't find any guidelines for adjusting the tension for this mower. I have found "general belt guidelines" of 1/2" deflection with 12 pounds applied. I'll be checking to see how close I am to that.

Sawyer Rob · Jul 21, 2018

ONE pump of grease every time you mow...

That's what makes them last...

SR

Bigfoot62 · Jul 21, 2018

Earlier this year, I was at the local TSC store. They had a 6' County Line (I think it's the same as your King Kutter) finish mower marked down from $1799 to $999. It had obviously been used and returned. The store manager was new, and didn't know why the mower was brought back. I had been looking for one, and decided to take a chance on it. Manager said that if it didn't work, I could just return it. I loaded it up and took it home. While I had it up in the air, I checked it out. The belt was broken, and one spindle had locked up, breaking the shaft. (and ruining the belt) I took the broken parts back to the store and he gave me new ones. I was satisfied. I even bought an extra spindle, thinking that I would need it eventually. The second time I used the mower, I had another bearing go out, but it was in an idler pulley. Wound up changing two pulleys. Another one was about to come apart.

Evidently, the bearing failure rate on the idlers must be pretty high as well. GA Equipment sells them in a 4-pack with a new belt!

Agvg · Jul 21, 2018

Well, cheap low quality bearings is often used on a lot of low price equipment, even on expensive equipment you can see that they didn't think of specific proper quality and the Chinese has a habit of putting the cheapest junk they can find if you forget to specify what you want.

PA hayseed · Jul 23, 2018

tmajor said:
The whole spindle thing, seems to be a "toss up"!

My Woods ZTR has 600+ hours on the original belts and bearings. ... no grease fittings and they run cool.
So, I've got the Nachi bearings in place, everything spins free. I mowed about 20 minutes in 8" grass and the pulleys were fairly hot, when I finished. The only thing, that I notice, is the longest span of "free belt" does quiver a bit and the tension spring is continually flexing/contracting, I'm thinking, maybe another idler pulley in that longest stretch of belt. ... But, it never needed it before! ?? Baffling. ... Maybe, the tension spring has gotten weak. ??

Interesting, my woods ztr FZ25D has grease fittings all over it, I think there are like maybe 10 on the mowing deck and I don't know how many on the ztr itself. When I say 10, I am including the ones on the wheels and wheel arms, as well as the three on the spindles. Page 16 of the service manual on this web page lists all the grease points. Product Details

tmajor · Jul 23, 2018

I don't know what to make of the bearing/spindle/grease situation. Greasing double sealed bearings makes no sense to me. Greasing single sealed bearings makes sense, but it's very easy to blow the seal out, especially, if it's rubber.

I managed to mow for about 2 hours the other day, without failure. That's after installing the Nachi bearings and tensioning the belt tighter. The pulleys got fairly hot. ?? Next time I mow, I'll try to get a reading with my laser thermometer.