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Bringing Decks back to life?


Simpleton7016

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Below are some pictures of a 48 inch deck that I recently picked up which sat outside (but covered) for 4 years. I played with it yesterday and though the spindles did spin, they were pretty tight. No obvious gringing noise though. All three mandrels had grease zirks so I gave them each a whole lot of grease and started working them back and forth. The internal belt is still usable and after about a half an hour....those blades spun pretty well. Still not as freely as my "everyday" deck, but good enough that I am thinking about hooking her up to the 912 (it will be a good color match since I have that ivory colored deck from the 7016 on there now) and unleashing 16 units of furious Briggs horsepower on 'er! Maybe I can get her to free up REAL nice! Have any of you ever successfully brought a deck back to life? Can it be done without going in and changing the bearings? I don't want to have to pull the arbors apart if I can avoid it, but I'm thinking that if the damage is already done (Ie. pitting, rust chunks, etc) then I should probably do it right the first time and strip it down. Can 'nearly frozen' decks be brought back to life with little more than Kroil and Grease?

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Not worth fixing. Let me properly dispose of it for you. Seriously, it's not that hard to change the bearings. I have had some bad condition decks that needed welding, but was worth the work. Best of all it was free.
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Changing the bearings is pretty easy, I did it so it must be. There is nothing like engaging a mower deck with your feet on it and feeling zero vibration. Well, almost nothing. I do know the bearings are sealed so adding grease may not help them to much. Mike
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I did this on some pulleys a while back: I put a pinhole in the rubber part of the seal, and put it in a position where it was face up. Then I sprayed it with PB Blaster, let it soak in, worked it, sprayed and worked it some more several times. These pulleys were siezed and it freed them up great, but took some time. You will have a pinhole which might leak some grease but mine was very minimal.
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If your deck was covered for several years the grease was probably hardened, run it on the tractor for 10-15 minutes and then grease it again try to force out the old grease, remove the belt and spin each arbor separately to see how free it is, if you get them all to spin free your set to go but check the idler pully and take up bracket, when they wear they tend to drag on the deck shell, if the bearings are tight on the idler try the grease gun adapter that looks like a syringe to get grease in there, just angle it thru the seal until you get enough grease in it.
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great tips guys....I will hook 'er up and fire up the tractor tomorrow and will report back. Thanks!!!
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Simpleton7016, I agree with RedbarnRick. If I was in your situation, I'd remove the mowing blades and hook up the belt to a power drill or better, an air drill, and drive the drill for a few minutes. Afterwards, I'd take the spindle apart, cleaning all parts with PB blaster. I'd use compressed air to clear the PB blaster after I'm done. Then I'd grease everything, and make sure the bearings are loaded with grease and put it all back together. Then turn on the drill again, spin the spindles. Wipe off excess grease, and you should be good to go.
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I hooked it up and she purred like a kitten! Less noise than the deck I have been using for 6 years+!! Now i have a dilemma since I just put some new blades on the old deck! Darn it!!! Thanks for all the advice. I was worried that applying all that HP might do some permanent damage....but my fears were for naught! It worked great! Now my wife can help me mow! :p
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I don't know about your bearings, but the bearings on a 42" deck are sealed, the grease you pump in is merely there to keep trash and debris from building up inside the housings. I did the same as you, however, on my ditch found Landlord deck. I even used it for over a year before the center mandrel went haywire and had to be replaced. The bearings would be reusable, so I saved them, but the housing came apart into several pieces, so it had to be replaced.
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