Deck spindles
 

The spindles on my deck don;t sound very good when spinning by hand. One of them actually locked up enough to make the PTO belts smoke yesterday at the LL's house.

Today I brought her back home, took the deck off and spinning the shaft by hand I could feel it wanting to bind up. So I removed the belt, and spun each spindle and they all turned rather easily. the middle one sounded rough... like no grease in it. The left side one would turn but stops spinning when I let go rather quickly.

I grabbed the grease gun and shot 3-4 squirts into each one but it did not seem to help much.

Two weeks ago I accidentally emptied the gearbox, so I know it has fresh oil in it. let me ask, if I remove the blades and the spindles from the deck will they come apart enough to see the shaft within? Or can a spindle be packed by hand with grease if it's like totally empty?

I mowed my entire yard two weeks ago with it.. but jack ash LL left it out in the rain for two days then it seized up on him so I don't know if that was just coincidence or payback or what.

I figure if I shoot some grease in them, put the deck back on and run it for a while while they warm up maybe the grease will ooze further down into the spindle assemblies... right?

You didn't list any kind of models of the deck, tractor or anything......

What kind of tractor/mower deck are we working on here? :Huh:

HA! Your right. DOH.

CC 3184 with the 44in deck. I found soem google results last night that looks like typical spindles cant be taken apart.. easier re-greasing, bearing replacement, etc. Provided I have the right sockets I guess.

If your spindle bearings are in that condition, it's time for new bearings. Grease isn't going to make them any better.

They look like they are rebuildable to me. This is the parts pic from Parts Tree

Possibly Mike.. Won't know until I get them out for inspection. Besides even if they should be replaced.. they'll last the remaining 2... 2 and a half mows that I've got left for this year ;)

Just rebuild them, they are easy to do. When I did my 54" deck, this is what I used.
Attachment 56506
Here is what the parts will look like.
Attachment 56507


I just did a 48" deck, IIRC all the 3000 series decks and a lot of the older ones use the same parts, so I did a little price checking.

I found that the bearings are available at Oriely Auto Parts for about $4.00 each. They are not Timken but I will see if they hold up as good as the Timkens do. Their part # is PT A-2, you will need 2 per spindle.

I then searched for the seals and found a bag of 6 seals on Ebay for about $12.00. I have never seen them that cheap so I took a gamble and ordered them. The part # is 10-12535 and they look pretty good. We will see if they hold up.

Don't remove the pulleys from the shaft. All parts come out from the top. Remove the old bearing race and seals and throw them away, clean everything else up good, drive in the new race and the rest of the new parts and you should be good for a few more years. I hand pack the bearings with grease and pump a few shots into the housing also. Install the bottom seal backwards so that when you pump grease into it in the future it can push out the bottom. Good luck!:beerchug:

Finally got back around to this. i was able to get the middle spindle apart.. well the shaft out. I cannot get the top-most bearing out though. I feel as though I should pound the entire assembly out from the top down, but I figured I'd ask first so I don't go breaking things.

I did wind up breaking the spring retainer 'thumb' off trying to turn it to relieve tension and remove the belt. So now I either need to find another one or get a welder to spot the spring back to that retainer prong thingy.

Hey Oak, how did those seals and bearings hold up? Im going to do the same thing with the same parts