I just finished today. It's a 3/4 inch bolt. No loctite was on it. It was **** getting them out even with a cheater pipe. I have to change them about once per month. It would be SO EASY if there was an access hole through the deck like on a bush hog. Oh well, It will be August before I have to do it again. This is my third set this year. And I am not cutting rugged ground at all....it's a church yard and I am cutting 12 to 13 acres per week. These are the sorriest blades I have ever come upon. With my old Rhino TM100 I changed them once per year. I am probably looking at about 5 sets on the Woods. The dealer has called Woods about the quality of the blades and they say I must be cutting a sand lot....I am not. I may go back to the Rhino which I still have and just use it. They used to make an upgraded steel blade, but it is not available for this mower. The Rhino blades are about 2.5 times as thick as these blades. These look like they should go on a small lawn mower. I also have to disassemble the covers over the spindles to clean inside around the spindles....tons of grass get caught up under them and I am afraid it will catch on fire. That's a pain as well and takes 15 to 20 minutes to do because of the way the supports are made. There is a foot deep cavern under the gear box and it takes forever to get all the grass out of there. This is about a 60 second operation on the Rhino...just blow the grass out because there is access all the way around the spindles due to an inch gap between the covers and the deck. The dealer got Woods to replace one of the lateral covers that the metal flange just broke off of....the metal is too thin and the Woods rep agrees that it is. I like the way the mower cuts, but the engineers that designed it should be shot or made to use one for about a month. I have multiple pieces of Woods equipment and have been very satisfied with them all except this contraption. Does the RM 990 have top access??
I just got the manuals for the rm990 and rd990x to compare them. The blades, blade pin, blade lock pin are all different part numbers and look like they assemble differently as well. Rick, I was wrong about the Nylok bolt...it is the same. I only wish better blades were available...I believe these must be Chinese steel or something. They obviously don't wear as well as the rm990 blades. The rm990 has an optional set of low suction blades that are supposed to wear longer as well....not available on the rd990x. I also had to wait 4 weeks for them to get resupplied at the Woods factory the first set I ordered. This makes me wonder if they are being imported from overseas as well. I ordered 2 sets, just used the second set and ordered 2 more sets this week. I hope that will be enough. This is getting to be an expensive problem.
