I threw a blade, possibly thd belt. Would like to help fix it.
Please advise.
@Saga @bigswede
Did you hit something? Or it just came loose?
He got mad and threw it in the stream. He can’t swim.
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should we have a couple of sheep or goats as a backup to keep the grass short when this happens?
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We’ve discussed this option actually. Problem I see is half of us would want to spit roast one of the goats every fall. The other half of us would name it and consider it one of us.
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Was scalping, definitely hitting some moderately loose dirt.
When the blade came off the deck was not that low. I picked up the blade and one nut, looked and found nothing else.
Did not want to repair without consulting on any known deck issues or possibly missing components.
If it is the left hand blade (when sitting on the mower), it has a bad spindle. We worked on it at the beginning of the year, and could not get the spindle to come off, so we managed to get the blade back. We apparently are going to need to order a new one and cutoff the old one.
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Be sure when you tighten the blades, you tighten them more than you think you need to. If you need a torque wrench, do that. Many of the previous spindle failures were caused by the blade not being tight enough, then flopping around on the spindle beating the splines on the spindle and the blade to non-existence. The blades need to be TIGHT!
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I’ve got a few big sockets,think and impact wrench might do it?
Yeah an impact should do it. Iirc, most places recommend torquing to 80 or 90 ft*lbs. At home I just tighten it to 4 ugga duggas, but looked up the “right” way the last time I replaced one of the spindles on that mower.
We should totally keep some goats at the space. We can have up to 3 with an annual permit with the city, which cost $100. If 1 happens to get eaten at a garden party, we’ll still have the 2 for backup to keep our lawn looking fresh and clean.
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fresh and clean…
Except for the goat turds!
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Thatll make for some amazing compost for the garden!
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I’ll come in tomorrow morning. Based on your comments, as long as I don’t need to replace anything should be able to fix it.
Thanks
Famous last words of every shade tree mechanic.
If it is the left side, the spindle may need to be replaced. We tried to remove it once but couldn’t get it off.
The left side spindle is indeed in need of replacement. I’ve removed it and set it on the table in the garage. It does appear that the blade was loose for a while and has beat the splines/lobes on the spindle almost flat. The blade no longer engages them. A Dremel might clean them up enough to reuse the spindle for awhile.
The belt is also broken and needs to be replaced. The broken belt is also on the table.
The belt guards were packed full of grass clippings. I’m the event of a bearing failure, that’s a good way to start a fire. That area should be blown out regularly.
I did leave the mower in the air. Hopefully nobody needs through there with anything large before it can be fixed. I guess my hope was that somebody will see this post before going up to the space to mow and pick up the necessary parts. If you need my help reassembling it give me a call and I will come up. All of the parts aside from the spindle and belt are on the seat of the mower.
As cheap as these things are, it’s not really cost effective to repair them aside from bearings. But they could probably be repaired by building up the lobes with tig and then machining new lobes on the tormach. In fact, the whole spindle could be machined at the space.
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Considering these developments I’ll not be working on it this morning. Would be happy to help where I can though
A corded impact wrench at hf is $50. That’s roughly the cost of two damaged spindles depending where they are purchased. Can we get one to help prevent damage to further parts? @Facilities
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