48” 3 spindle deck
 

As I’ve finally gotten my tractor running pretty well I’ve began tackling the mower deck that I got with it. I got the blades off after lots of PB blaster and a very good impact. I’ve got the spindles apart from the deck and I’ve began disassembling them, however I’m confused on how to check the condition of the spindles and bearings. I’ve got the pulley detached, the spindle is in two pieces. I see two rubber seals on each end of the “main” spindle piece, and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Is there a way to further disassemble these? Replace seals, bearings etc? How do I tell if a replacement spindle is needed? If one is needed how do I find a replacement?

Not knowing what model your deck is off makes it a little difficult but my 50" deck the spindles have the a seal top and bottom thence bearings top and bottom , if bearings are rattly or grate replace them just knock them out and take to a bearing supplier to get same type and seals and press back in , easy as
I have rebuilt one of my spindles
Oz

Sorry, I forgot to mention that. It’s a Cub Cadet 147. The bearings I think are in the middle of the spindle? The seals seem to be in the way but I’m not sure how to get those out. I’m scared of ripping one and not being able to find a replacement.

You might try this. It is a link to the IH Parts Manual for the IH built mower decks. Since you have a 48" deck, please know there are about 3 or 4 Generations of this deck. Look at each of the 48" generations to see what resembles yours. From there, it will show the parts for that generation, what was used, and the order installed. See link....... IH Decks

If you are lucky, you have the later version of spindles with aluminum housings and use common taper roller bearings like automobiles front spindles, before they went to front wheel drive.
Bearings and races are dirt cheap.
If they were quiet and not loose, I'd not bother with them.
Do understand if the pulley and blade are not in place, they will seem "loose".:bigthink:

I believe the spindles I have are cast iron housings, so I’m guessing these are early production spindles? All stickers were painted over, but there’s a serial number I can share if that would help. I don’t have a belt for it yet so I haven’t tested it using motor power but when I first got it they wouldn’t even spin, upon using a ton of pb blaster to take off the blade they freed themselves and two of them seemed to spin pretty good, but the middle one wasn’t as smooth and made some noise. I figured they haven’t been greased in who knows how long so I wanted to take them apart, clean out the old grease and re grease them. The grease inside was pretty much useless. Just brown rusty sludge. Maybe I’ll leave them mostly on tact and just wash them and clean them up and regrease. Does this sound good?

If they are that bad especially the center one. it needs inspection.
If you can post a pix, we can tell you if it is a cartridge/water pump style, or
taper bearings.
The cartridge style are in a metal 2 piece stamping,
and tapered bearings are in a casting.
Also the cartridge style are not rebuildable if rusty/pitted as
one has to replace the complete costly bearing/shaft assembly. :BlahBlah:

Here’s the pictures

Alright curiosity got the best of me and I tried everything I could to carefully get the bearings and seals out. I’m going to assume at this point I have the rebuildable spindles as the bearings pop out, as well as seals and it seems they are easily found at stores. I do still have one question though: One if the spindles when I separated the shaft from the housing in the slot in the shaft a “key” fell out. Only one of the 3 spindles had this key. Is this a replaceable part? How important is this key?

The keys are very important. They keep the pulleys from spinning on the shaft. The other 2 keys are probably still in the pulleys.