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An odd thing happened yesterday


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Posted
While mowing the grass yesterday with my 2110, 2 of the blades on the deck decided they had enough and 'fell' off!! Talk about a racket. Luckily, I was mowing in first gear (low ground speed) at about 1/4 throttle. I was cutting around one of the wifes garden beds. The bolts and blades were very easy to find in the grass, so I go back into the shop to investigate further. Now I can't imagine I never torqued those bolts enough after I overhauled the arbors in the spring, but rather the lock washers seemed a little too big. Both of them were compressed and splayed open. I rectified the problem with a couple of oversized flat washers with new lock washers. I have a couple of questions now, has this ever happened to any one before (if so, what was the problem and how was it solved) and how many ftlbs should the blade bolts be torqued to? Cheers, BTW, I still haven't got the belly blade bracket made yet. When I do I'll post pictures.
Posted
You mentioned you were at 1/4 throttle, and this probably has nothing to do with the blade coming off, but I've always thought it best to run full throttle when working. Is this true?
Posted
Dan, I had that happen last year. I was mowing in first gear too. The center blade had dropped. Luckily it didn't hit the other blades while dropping. It turned out the holes on the flanges where getting larger then the bolt size. What I ended up doing was putting a lockwasher and a nut to keep the bolt in place.
Posted
Yea skubbs, I was mowing in 1st at 1/4 throttle. I was near one of the wife's garden beds so I was being very careful not to chew anything up. I didn't mean in my explanation that I thought that had anything to do with the blades coming off or not, just a thumbnail of what I was doing at the time. I suspect the oversized lock washer had something to do with it. As a side, I typically mow in 2nd at 1/3 throttle with the mower drive belt on the 'small' pulley of the midship PTO. I find with that set-up, I have decent ground speed and the deck speed allows it to cutt well. So to answer your question, I'm not sure. I think it would depend on your machine, gear ratios and so on. And Nick, as I said above, I'm certain the lock washers were the culprits. Hopefully, I have 'er cased now.
Posted
Running on the smaller drive pulley your turning your deck slower then norm if I'm thinkin right.
Posted
The small pulley is for running the sickle bar mower.
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