The "I'm Obsessive With Lawn Tractors" Thread

[CopperNick]

Yeah, that was my thought too. Anyone offering an exchange service that takes in cores and ships out rebuilt rams with some kind of warranty as part of the deal? That $520 might seem steep but expressed in terms of labor/hour at whatever the current rate is in your area, is it cheaper to go new or find a good rebuild?



Nick

 

[Wageslave]

But rebuildable?

Lift cylinder is welded. They can technically be cut open and rebuilt, but it's really not worth the effort or cost if a whole unit is available. Especially since there isn't anyone local who can do it, so I would have to pay for shipping as well.

I can find used ones on eBay at about $300 or new ones at just over $400. The $520 Partstree one is a good guarantee that I have options, though. I am not going to get too would up until I get the deck back off and inspect the fittings and lines.

 

[CopperNick]

Makes Sense.



Nick

 

[Wageslave]

Good news (relatively). I found the source of my oil leak and it was not the lift cylinder. The top hydraulic hose has a pretty substantial leak at the crimp, and it was running down to the lift cylinder. I had to remove the operator station off of the mower to get to all the goodies, but serviceability is surprisingly good considering. The lift cylinder drops out with two pins and the tower came off with about 8 nuts and bolts.

Will get a new hose ordered and hopefully ready to mow next week. Luckily the hose is about $65, so a whole lot better than the cylinder.

 

[Wageslave]

Well, the hose arrived today and I got it slapped on the mower. The good news is that that leak was resolved and the replacement part fits like it should. The bad news is the opposite hose sprung a leak when I went to cycle the cylinder back and forth to purge the air out. I am guessing that pulling tension on the other hose caused that crimp to fail as well. Rather annoying as that hose will take a few more days to get here, but not the end of the world.

On the other hand the clevis pin that attaches the back of the cylinder to the lift mechanism has some really gnarly wear on it. It is about 2/3rds wore through in both notches, and will need replaced before this rig returns to service.The fixed front pin shows almost no wear whatsoever.

 

[Ugly1]

Well, the hose arrived today and I got it slapped on the mower. The good news is that that leak was resolved and the replacement part fits like it should. The bad news is the opposite hose sprung a leak when I went to cycle the cylinder back and forth to purge the air out. I am guessing that pulling tension on the other hose caused that crimp to fail as well. Rather annoying as that hose will take a few more days to get here, but not the end of the world.

On the other hand the clevis pin that attaches the back of the cylinder to the lift mechanism has some really gnarly wear on it. It is about 2/3rds wore through in both notches, and will need replaced before this rig returns to service.The fixed front pin shows almost no wear whatsoever.

View attachment 242629View attachment 242630

There was a reason for the hose to go! Someone is looking over your shoulder 😇

 

[Wageslave]

I ALMOST bought two of them and changed them out at the same time, but being a tight *ss got the better of me. That wore out pin appears to also be the end stop/travel limiter for the deck lift mechanism. A decent design, I guess, as that pin becomes a wear part instead of the linkage. Just glad it was discovered before it wore all the way through.

 

[Wageslave]

Finally got my hose in and hooked up, no more hydraulic leaks! Welded and ground that grooved out pin back into shape so I didn't have to buy a new one.

The pin actually came out really well. The mild steel wire I had loaded in the mig welder should be softer than the original steel in the pin, so it will eventually wear down again but that is better than wearing out the lift assembly.

Reinstallation should have been a simple task, but the front cylinder pin absolutely refused to line up and install. After about an hour of sweating, cursing, and guessing just how many penises could fit in that engineers mouth at the same time, I finally pulled the whole bracket off and found that someone had managed to bend it. Apparently when I pulled the pin out, the whole thing sprung out of alignment.

A few quick smacks with a hammer and it is back to its original shape.

I then rinsed most of the oil off of the deck and gave the belts a soak in the gasoline bucket, and reinstalled the deck. The test mow went well, one of the deck pulleys is slightly bent and vibrating which is causing a little belt slip but I'll deal with it after the mowing season is over. This one is going back to work for now.

 

[ck80]

Today was mowing deck rebuild day.

New chinesium pulleys $7 50 x2, New MTD belt $28, New chinesium spindles $17.50 x2

Homemade shield to cover the hole where the torn and tattered plastic chute formerly lived (free courtesy of scrap)

And of course, New blades. ($18)

With the way this yard tears up equipment wasn't going big or high end on anything.

The new spindles do have zerk fittings, but, are press-in cheapest anyways. To be perfectly honest, the way the filled land heaves and sinks with shallow roots they're going to take hits anyways.

Which gets me to a contemplation overnight. My old JD grease gun loaded with their product is MIA but my other gun loaded with valvoline extreme red I *do* know where it is. Debating pumping the spindles full of the valvoline and seeing how it does. It'd cost nore to buy a third grease gun and new tube of my usual than just get another set of Chinese spindles if it doesn't hold up.

Thoughts?

 

[Peter P.]

I replaced the spindles on my cutting deck last year because of a failure of one of the originals. The replacement spindles were bought from Amazon and have zerk fittings . When researching on Youtube I discovered that you need to be sure that the the "sealed" bearings of the spindles have adequate grease in them. Because the bearings are sealed you can pump all the grease you want into the spindle you want but it won't get into the bearing. This spring I disassembled the spindles, opened the bearings and found not much grease in them and of questionable quality (in fact one looked like it was packed with petroleum jelly). I cleaned the bearings of the old grease, repacked and reassembled. Some people leave the seal off the interior side of the bearing so that you can just pump the spindle full of grease and it can get to the bearings.

Hope this makes sense and helps.