Howling Idlers - LA145 48" deck

[jinman]

Yep, as several of you suggested, I could take apart the idler and try to find a better bearing. What I've done instead is to buy the Oregon brand of replacement idlers instead of John Deere parts. I just received three idlers from an eBay purchase and they look to be a bit better than the JD parts. It's easy to change the idlers and I can hear them howling when they are going bad, so it's more of an irritation than anything else. If you are handy, it's minor, but if you had to have your mower picked up and worked on at JD, it would be a major pain in the patoot.

Another thing that is weird about this deck is the way the idler is mounted. In the photo below, you can see the small idler on the right side of the photo. This is the idler that fails most. It is also the first thing on the deck that gets power from the PTO. When you pull the PTO switch and the electric clutch engages, it delivers all the shock load to this first idler. If the idler had even 1/2" of movement against a spring, it would keep that instantaneous shock from being totally absorbed by the bearing. As it is, all the shock is felt by this idler until the deck comes up to speed. The large idler in the photo is the last thing before the belt returns to the PTO clutch and it has a spring to hold tension on the belt. I replaced this idler one time because it was getting a little loose, but it seems to last 3 times as long as the small idlers, or perhaps, even longer.

I tested an X320 and X324 mower earlier this year. When I energized the PTO on those mowers, it was a nice gentle engagement that seemed to be engineered to eliminate the instantaneous shock. The difference between that mower and this 100 series model is stunning. It's obvious that JD wanted to get into a low-cost market and compete with the $2000 crowd of mowers on the market. I really don't think they are doing themselves any favors with these low-cost mowers. Who knows, maybe they are making lots of money in sheer volume and keeping their service departments busy.:confused2::confused3: However, mjncad and I will be sure and keep everyone aware of how lousy these low-cost products are. I've noticed that JD seems to change the model number designations on these mowers every few years. They are now calling them the "D100" series. Perhaps they are doing that to keep buyers confused.

 

[rayikeo2]

Looking at your picture, I don't see any grease zerts on your 3 main spindles. Can you grease them? My deck has zerts on each spindle and I grease them several times per year. I had a Sears with no zerts and replaced spindles twice. No more Sears for me. Your deck looks too fragile to last. No wonder the idlers wear out due to poor routing.

 

[mjncad]

I've noticed that JD seems to change the model number designations on these mowers every few years. They are now calling them the "D100" series. Perhaps they are doing that to keep buyers confused.

The "L" stood for "Lemon", "LA" for "LemonAde", and the new "D" stands for "Dud."

Looking at your picture, I don't see any grease zerts on your 3 main spindles. Can you grease them? My deck has zerts on each spindle and I grease them several times per year. I had a Sears with no zerts and replaced spindles twice. No more Sears for me. Your deck looks too fragile to last. No wonder the idlers wear out due to poor routing.

I think later model decks got Zerk's for the spindles. Mine doesn't have them.

 

[jinman]

Looking at your picture, I don't see any grease zerts on your 3 main spindles. Can you grease them?

Yes, I would not buy a mower without zerks on the spindles. I grease my spindles every 8-10 hours. They are currently tight and spin freely, but I did have one crater on me early last year. The replacement was less than $60, so it is cheap compared even to a MTD spindle that is normally around $125. However, "Cheap is as cheap does," might be a good Forrest Gump quote about these spindles.

 

[pennwalk]

Fyi there is a thread over at MTF where vando grinds the rivets holding the big idler halves together and replaces the bearing. He posted pictures. It's titled "Idler pulley bearing replacement' in the JD forum.

Chris

 

[jinman]

Yep Chris, Vando said he spent $4 on his bearing and he also spent time grinding the old rivets out and replacing them with new ones. His price on the idler is more than here in the USA where you can just about pay anywhere from $8.00 to $15 for them depending on your source. I buy through eBay, but here is an Amazon source where the large and small idlers (GY20629 and GY20067) are the same price, $7.99. Heck, you can even buy a whole assembled spindle for around $36. It's really hard for me to spend as much time and effort as Vando did to save $4. In the time he took grinding off his rivets, I'd have my idler replaced and be mowing grass while he was still putzing around with pop-rivets.:laughing:

 

[stang]

Just what I was planning on doing. It would be well worth the effort if the replacement bearings are of a much higher quality than the originals. I would drill out the spot welds (mine are welded) and plug weld them back together again to make sure they didn't fly apart. Cheap rivets won't hold up in my opinion.

Stang