Preventative maintenance is changing oil, fixing small leaks and worn out parts before they completely fail and cause unscheduled down time. Adding metal to something to strengthen it is more of a modification.
Check to make sure that the deck has the steel plate on top. That ads more strength than anything. Seen a few that they were either missing or broken. Clean the deck up really well and look for stress cracks. Weld them up if you find any. Dag1450 talked about the rear wheel brackets cracking the deck. That is true, they will. That is more of a setting thing though. The wheels aren't designed to run just off the ground and keep it from digging in. They are not designed to carry the deck. Once you get your cut height set, park the tractor on concrete. The wheels should not be touching the concrete. 1/2" or so above is about right. (The user's manual may have a spec, not sure.) The newer decks like the GT deck, now those can carry the deck. But they are made completely different.
Dag, just for the record I don't disagree that what you did wasn't good thing. I just am not sure it's worth the trouble. I mean, the 50C deck I have still has the original spindle bearings in it and for the most part has held up well. I did recently get a used deck to likely replace it with, but mine has just worn out. The metal on the left edge has gotten so thin from grass friction wear that it is cracking, and like you mentioned the wheel mounts on the back of the deck cracked (I welded it back together).... but the tractor has over 2K hours on it, and I'd venture to say that about 1500 have been put on that deck. Assuming you cut grass at an average speed of 3mph (which would account for turning and mowing around obstacles) that would equate to cutting about 2300 acres of grass. I think that's a pretty good run really for it being a stamped deck. *Most* of the tractors on this forum don't have much over 1000 hours if even that many. Few have 2000 or more. So they should still have a lot of life left in them.
