Anybody had this problem?

[HubbardRA]

My son called me last night. He was having problems with the mower on his 64 Landlord. The belts started slipping and smoking. When he pulled the covers to check the cross-belt, he found that the flange had broken loose from the tube on the center arbor. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how did you hold the assembly square in alignment to re-weld the pieces? I will be the one who has to fix it for him, tomorrow. I would like to re-weld the assembly without pressing the bearings out. Can it be done this way? I am thinking, tack it, cool it with water, burn about an inch of weld, cool it, repeat as necessary, till finished.

[mmischni]

Hi Rodney, I have not seen one come apart while mowing, but my '64, I just discovered, has the flanges held to the arbor tubes with spot welds. My Broadmoor of about the same vintage had stitch welds and I noticed that a "new" replacement on the landlord (the black ones with extra holes) were welded along the entire joint. I would think the spot welds may be a little weak, especially if there are or ever were unbalanced blades. I separated the flanges from the tubes on my arbors when I shortened them. For me, it was easy enough to just tap them back on as the fit is snug enough that they align as they go together. It should be obvious how far it goes on with the paint marks or the old welds. However, if this came apart while mowing, it may be pretty beat up. If you have access to a lathe you could just face an aluminum plate and bore a clearance hole for arbor tube to make a good 90 degree fixture. Or, with a router and a circle template, perhaps you could make up a fixture with just a nice flat piece of plywood (if you can find one!) or lumber. If the flange is pretty beat up and not flat, it will probably take more work. As for welding with the bearings in it, I cannot give advice, but your idea sounds feasible. Good luck! Matt

[HubbardRA]

Thanks Matt, I have not seen the piece yet. My son will either bring it down tomorrow AM or I will have to go to his house and pick it up with my truck. He lives 16 miles from me and is not sure the deck will fit in his Mazda, for transportation. He is planning to bring the whole mower deck so that I can make sure everything is correct while we are working on it.

[skunkhome]

Rod, I am no welder but I do have a machine shop I work closely with and I think it would be very risky to weld on the tube with the bearings in place. I have tried that with wheel hubs and have never managed to keep from cooking the bearings. Just thinking about it I wonder if you could weld the flange while keeping one of the bearings immersed in water, weld for short durations and cool the other with water, you might pull it off. . Are you a gambling man?

[Willy]

I had this happen with the center arbor,I took the shaft and bearings out and set it on a flat surface and taped it back in place,then welded it up. I would definitely remove the bearings, it's a good time to check them and add a little grease.

[rokon2813]

IF I'm not too late.... flip it over and line up the blade tips, small piece of something flat above and below the tips and C-clamp together. The blades will be perfectly aligned, then weld the houseing

[HubbardRA]

Got it fixed Saturday. When I saw the "real" problem then it wasn't very hard to fix. The mounting flange was in two pieces. It had broken into two rings. The brake was along the edge where the flat flange transitions into a cone, about halfway across the flange. We just lined up the break, tacked it in place, and welded it back together, without removing it from the deck. We did do the intermediate cooling to prevent ruining the bearings. Just spinning the blade, the bearings feel fine. We also found about a 6 inch crack in the deck, about 4 inches in front of the arbor. I guess these cracks were from fatigue, after 40 years of operation. Imbalance on the blade could have also been a large factor. Who knows how it was treated before my son got it. From the looks of the blades, they had been replaced not long before he got it. Another old machine ready to go back to work. It will be working to cut his "knee-high" grass.

[mmischni]

Glad you got it fixed. Keep an eye on the cracks (and the rest of it for that matter. I welded cracks on my Broadmoor's deck several times only to have them return along with a lot of their friends. I don't know if it was just stressed steel or what (perhaps my welding isn't exactly skillful) but that deck was dead set on coming apart. Finally just replaced it with one from our own MarksA-C. By the end, the area of the deck that the chute-side arbor mounts to was almost completely surrounded by a crack. The piece stayed in the deck, but you could wiggle it about! Matt

[HubbardRA]

We went past the end of the crack and made a cross weld, then put a couple cross welds within the crack, before welding along the length of the crack. Hopefully that will prevent further cracking. Also our weld did a full penetration of the deck. We welded on the inside but it penetrated to the outside.