Mower deck

[ol'George]

Wash yer deck out every mowing,and in 8-10 years, it will be a rusted hulk and you can buy a new one!
I scrape out my 50C deck after every mowing, takes less than 5 minutes and get 1 five gallon bucket and 1/2 of another one, every time.
Just the nature of the beast after 3 acres or so of grass.
I have a little 1 ton air powered hoist that lifts up the front of the mower in
3-4 seconds, I then sit on my little joey stool and scrape with a putty knife.
keeps things clean under there.
best $25 I ever spent an an auction!
Total chore lasts less than 5 min.
Now if I see a nicked blade or they all need a sharpening, just grab the impact and
ba-zip, the blade in in yer hand to sharpen and replace.
easy peasy.

[cooperino]

Originally Posted by ol'George

Wash yer deck out every mowing,and in 8-10 years, it will be a rusted hulk and you can buy a new one!
I scrape out my 50C deck after every mowing, takes less than 5 minutes and get 1 five gallon bucket and 1/2 of another one, every time.
Just the nature of the beast after 3 acres or so of grass.
I have a little 1 ton air powered hoist that lifts up the front of the mower in
3-4 seconds, I then sit on my little joey stool and scrape with a putty knife.
keeps things clean under there.
best $25 I ever spent an an auction!
Total chore lasts less than 5 min.
Now if I see a nicked blade or they all need a sharpening, just grab the impact and
ba-zip, the blade in in yer hand to sharpen and replace.
easy peasy.

Bows down to the ever wise George

I do a thorough cleaning once a year and slather on some rustyolium rusty metal prime and then paint on the main machine I use for cutting.
Since I do that, if there was a way for washing as we were discussing,
do you think I would still have an issue with rust?

I cut only a little more than an acre with mine once a week. "way less than your cutting" Or do you think i should just lift up and clean as you do every third time of cutting?

[dodge trucker]

Depending on how wet the yard is. Sometimes it will be plugged after 1 lap, when drier out it may go 3 or 4 mowings.
I have had good luck with POR 15 on the deck bottoms. Get the gloss black, when dry it can be kinda slippery. Reapply once a year or as needed

[go_aggies]

Thanks for all of your suggestions. Sounds like I will just have to scrape it out after each use.

Go_aggies

[rhampshire]

After scraping 10 pounds of nastiness from under my 42" 125 deck I installed one of those MTD nozzle kits. It was 8 bucks off amazon. I'll let you guys know how it does - I dont have my hopes up. I'm not too worried about rust from the water as I figure grass (even when it's dry out) is FULL of moisture, hence all the rotten moldy crap I scraped off.

[Sam Mac]

Yep spraying water under the deck will do wonders, you'll wonder where the deck shell went and you'll wonder where your spindle bearings went.

[Roy Najecki]

Years ago when I rebuilt my 50C deck I painted the underside with Slip Plate in the hopes that grass clippings wouldn't build up. It didn't work. I thought about installing two of the water nozzles on the deck, but the idea of water squirting towards the bearings seems to be a very bad idea. It's bad enough that I usually only grease the bearings once a year.

[rhampshire]

Originally Posted by Sam Mac

Yep spraying water under the deck will do wonders, you'll wonder where the deck shell went and you'll wonder where your spindle bearings went.

I respectfully disagree. Grass is about 85% water. I'd rather wash that crap out and let everything dry in my shop than have it stuck up there to fester. I have new(ish) spoindle seals and bearing, plus grease is an excellent water repellant. But I haven't even tested this wash kit yet...

[ol'George]

And just how many DECADES heve you been doing this?
Let us know how that works out for you in a few years

[cooperino]

Originally Posted by rhampshire

I respectfully disagree. Grass is about 85% water. I'd rather wash that crap out and let everything dry in my shop than have it stuck up there to fester. I have new(ish) spoindle seals and bearing, plus grease is an excellent water repellant. But I haven't even tested this wash kit yet...

I think there is some merit to what your saying or at least makes sense in theory. Wet grass left in deck over long periods or some water that will dry pretty quickly with nothing there to absorb it. Water should not penetrate into well greased bearings. It's not high pressure like from a pressure washer. Also my thinking was living grass that's wet will also create some heat which will help things rust and corrode as well.

Fermentation of the sugars in grasses gives off energy even in excess of the energy that can be captured by the growing organisms. This excess energy builds up as heat if the fermentation proceeds fast enough with the extra insulation provided by the grass clippings.*

So. Question is which is worse of 2 evils? Wash every week? Or let grass sit in deck week over week? Short of scraping deck every week and using no water, what can be done?