48" SDD

[Aussie 98]

I used a 48" side discharge mower deck on my 520H all last winter and it didn't miss a beat. I do have a 60" deck but the ground I cut is a bit rough - grass as opposed to lawn, and the 48 is a bit easier on the tractor. I am currently cutting around five acres which takes roughly four hours and two tanks of fuel. The mower didn't miss a beat but I was expecting the belt to break towards the end as it had lots of chunks out of the rubber. I managed to wrap up some fence wire a couple of times, mowing areas I hadn't been before but no major issues. The RH deck spindle has developed about half an inch of vertical play, but no wobble. I realised that I would need to do some work before next season, which is suddenly nearly here.

The grass here greens up in autumn and grows strongly over the winter period before dying off in late spring. It normally doesn't require mowing from November until May, unless we get summer rains.

This is the deck I used last year;

I had four of the 48" SDD's and dismantled three of them for rebuilding. I picked up another 520 last week and so now have five 48 decks, in addition to the 60 and a 42" RDD as well as a new 42" SDD. I want to refurbish one of each for my WH collection as well as setting up two for use. That way if I have problems during mowing season I can just swap decks and keep on going.

As another home project I want to make up some raised garden beds for growing vegetables in the back yard. I came up with a design and made some corner brackets to bolt sleepers together. When the brackets were done I decided to galvanise them so they will outlast me. This was just after Christmas and I was thinking I needed to get on with the mower deck.

When I built my trailer a few years ago I had the rims, tailgate hinges and catches, and a bar inside the tailgate for the loading ramps to hook into all galvanised. They are not showing any wear after more than ten years.

So far with my tractor rebuilds (416H and 520H in progress) I have had everything powder coated. I want durability rather than originality with the working mowers and thought why not get the parts for the decks hot dipped at the same time as my other garden brackets. They turned out great!

I hadn't done anything with the deck shell and wasn't sure of the best way to treat it. I want something durable but low maintenance, so was leaning towards sandblasting followed by a couple of coats of POR15. However, when I got the galvanised brackets back I started thinking, I wonder if the shell could also be galvanised? Initially I was hesitant for fear of warping the shell, but when I was scraping the worst of the crud out from underneath the steel was thicker than I expected. I decided to take it to the sandblaster and call in to the galvanisers on the way and ask them if they thought it would handle the tank okay. The chap I spoke to assured me it would be fine so I decided to give it a try.

The reason I was hesitant is that I made up some sump covers at work many years ago and when they came back from being galvanised they were all bent up like bananas. At the time I was told it was due to stresses locked up in the steel from welding. Anyhow, I thought it would be worth trying. I also took in the rear height adjuster bar, and a pair of 12" rims. The back rims on the mowing tractor seem to cop a lot of the grunge.

Picked it all up yesterday and 100% success! You beauty. This one is going to outlast me. Bearing in mind that these decks are all over twenty years old, with a bit of care they will last for many more years.

and the rims;

[shorts 182]

I really like the galvanized deck and wheel idea, ith a proper prep procedure they can still be painted or powder coated for appearance.

[varosd 1,185]

looks great!  a lot of folks have tried POR-15, powder coat, old oil, pain, graphite etc.  let us know how it works out.

 

In regards to your grass, I guess it is like our southern warm season grasses, meaning it goes dormant and brown during the cold season. i.e. Bermuda, Zoysia, centipede?

[Tankman 3,518]

The galvanizing looks great, excellent.

 

Would easily take paint, WH red naturally. 

 

Back in the day, I copied the decks and fab'd 'em using 316 SS. Nice. I used all the WH deck hardware during reassembly.

 

I was pickin' up garden tractors, inexpensive, 'cause the decks were shot.

 

Let's see a pic of your deck, red!  

[Aussie 98]

This one is going to be a worker, it will be going back together to be used fairly soon. I think I would like to let the galv age and dull off for a while before coating over it. I will ask my powdercoater his opinion next time I take something in. Red decks will be coming tankman and shorts! Stainless would be awesome.

Don, the grass I am encouraging is kikuyu, not sure if you know it? It is green over winter but only grows actively in the warmer weather. After Christmas it was all brown, we had 2" of rain and it took off - lush and green now without any further rain yet. It spreads by runners, can be a nuisance if it gets into garden beds but relatively easy to manage if you keep an eye (and spade) on the edges.

Here is my back lawn which doesn't get watered.

I went past an agricultural machinery dealer this morning, around the corner from me but I don't go that way very often. He has a whole range of new galvanised implements for the CUT's he sells.

I was reading an article on what can be galvanised and there was a statement that fabrications made from a combination of thick and thin sections can be prone to warpage - maybe that is what happened to my lids all those years ago. The carry all above looked a bit wonky, but I think it was just flimsy. Here is a photo of the brackets for my garden beds;

[Aussie 98]

I thought I would check over the deck I collected last weekend. It appeared fairly neat and I thought I might be able to use it as is for a while.

First I removed the top covers over the belts and lifted the mower with my chain block. The belt run was packed with grass dust and oil.

While collecting it, I was tying the tractor onto the back of my truck and noticed the underside coated in a thick oily/dust mix film. I casually commented to the seller that there must be an oil leak. He seemed offended and said, "no it isn't leaking - you can see the floor is dry where it was sitting". Can't argue with that kind of logic so I shut up and secured everything. From the oil in the deck well it appears to be leaking from the lift valve or cylinder, although it can be hard to tell as the hydro fan spreads it around fairly well. I expect the hydro fins will be well choked up. It is fairly damp crud, so easy to clean off due to the oil film. It must have been leaking for a while - I haven't seen one of those deck bump rubbers split before.

As I cleaned it up I notice some previous repairs. The deck must have taken a substantial hit in the left rear quarter at some time. The height quadrant had been welded on over a horizontal split that had also been welded up. I don't think the brace over the outlet is original, but it was neatly done. The internal discharge chute is different to my others. Extra rod bracing had also been added to the ends of the shell. I didn't take too much notice of the extensive rust pitting all around the reinforcement plate, it had been cleaned up and repainted.

The centre spindle was missing the grease nipple. The blades are good but could do with a sharpen. I decided I would check the bearings and clean some of the dried grass off the bottom.

Here is how I remove the spindles;

first unscrew the grease nipples.

Then I loosen the nuts above the pulleys and back them off until they are flush with or slightly above the top of the spindle shaft.

Next undo the blade nuts. I have a rattle gun which marches the 1 1/8"AF nuts off smartly. You can use a block of wood to jam the blade against the housing and a large spanner. In the photo you can see a Wheel Horse deck spanner. This is designed to hold the spindle at the hex above the blade. Mine is worn, so only useful for shed decoration now. You can also see some fragments of poly baler twine, the bane of mowers everywhere. This stuff seems to lurk in grass that has never had a bale of hay within miles of it, and is great for chewing out oil seals. One spindle housing had worn down right to the circlip groove the twine was packed in that tight.

Next get a block of hardwood to place over the top of the spindle. A firm love tap is usually all it takes to push the spindle down through the pulley bore until it bottoms on the previously loosened nut. Remove the nut and drive the spindle out of the pulley, down through the spindle housing. I have always found them fairly easy to remove, these didn't even need hitting as the previous repairer had greased them well. If they are tight it might pay to let some PB Blaster soak in for a while. You don't want to damage the internal and external threads on the top end of the spindle shaft.

Each spindle is secured by four bolts through the reinforcing plate and deck shell. They are threaded into the aluminium spindle housings so no nuts to try and hold, but originally secured with thread locking compound so can be stiff. When the four bolts are out the spindles will fall through the bottom.

Undo the bolt securing the idler pulley to the arm, this is also threaded into the arm. There is only one bolt holding the reinforcing plate to the deck shell, in the centre near the back. Remove this and the reinforcing plate can be lifted off.

I wasn't happy with the mess under the reinforcing plate. There is extensive corrosion all over the top of the shell. This deck must have been frequently hosed clean, or left out in the rain with grass on top. It is severely pitted, with pinholes and cracking around the spindle boss holes. None of my other decks have anything like this sort of damage. Surprisingly the reinforcement plate has no corrosion damage at all.

All cleaned up, but not very pretty. A disappointment for sure. I'll have to think about what I do with this one.

Next job is to assemble the spindles for the galv deck.

[posifour11 723]

Nice, thorough explanation.

[Martin 2,131]

Aussie, i would be interested in what your powdercoater says about powder over galvanizing. we paint some galvanized parts at work, actually they are cell phone towers, and find that the paint 'gasses out' when curing. the galvanizing releases gasses when in the cure oven and this has to go some where (through the paint) and leaves a slightly bubbly finish. the customer is ok with the finish as he just needs the 'color' on them, the corrosion protection is in the galvanizing. i think you have a great idea here by doing the deck shell and parts. it should definitely help protect the metal more than regular paint, but.......

 

with my latest project i have been involved in zinc plating a lot more than the past and i like the finish it gives for fasteners and brackets etc over painting them with powder coat, a more 'oem' finish. but the one problem with all plating such as zinc (and galvanizing too to some extent) it is still a 'sacrificial' coating, so over time its going to corrode in some way.

the powder coat doesn't deteriorate anywhere near as much, i looked just the other day at some parts i painted silver on one of my earlier builds and they still look new, whereas the bolts next to them look like the zinc has weathered some, dulled off and a little chalky. even though the galvanized finish lasts so much longer than the regular zinc plating that bolts etc use, its still something to keep in mind. i just wish the shiny, like new finish would remain.......

 

i think the galvanizing is still the best approach as a plating, corrugated sheet roofing back home has proven that ( i still remember many old homes with that material as roofing and fencing.)  its not until decades have past that the sheets will corrode, and only from an edge or nail hole. the painting over the top is what bothers me, i would want a nice smooth shiny deck, but if you are more interested in durability and not a show finish, i think it would be your best way to go....

Edited April 5, 2014 by Martin

[Aussie 98]

Thanks Martin

I probably won't be catching up with the powder coater for some time yet, but will pass on his thoughts when I do. I think it would definitely help to weather the galv for some time, years even. I am not fussed about the look of this deck, it is for work. I have a really good one that will be powder coated and restored, but probably not used.

I had some small parts zinc plated a few years back and was disappointed with how quickly they faded. It was also expensive. I am lucky with my current 520 rebuild that most of the original zinc plating is still in good condition.

Bolts are all new zinc. I was hoping to fit the decal for the choke / throttle panel this weekend, but ran out of time. Terry made up the new decal and I got it last week. Will update the thread on that one when I get a bit more done.

[Aussie 98]

This weekend I started by removing the spindles from the deck I used last year. Then I had six spindles to dismantle and clean up. All were very cruddy and had a lot of rubbish jammed above the bottom bearing guard and wrapped around the spindles. This material included long dried grass stems, wire, baling twine and nylon. I also found a double turn of 8 gauge wire in one and a circlip floating in another.

Here is the pile of crud that was wrapped around the spindle bottoms.

This was all so tightly packed that it was wearing away the ends of the spindles, to the point where three were worn beyond the circlip groove, one had the circlip half exposed and another not far behind. Only one of the six spindle housings is re-usable.

Here you can see the three at the back don't have any circlip groove remaining, front left is just below lip, centre one is okay and front right circlip is level with end of housing.

This is something I will keep an eye on. I didn't run into this problem with the decks I dismantled previously but it appears that excess rubbish getting wrapped in the spindles can lead to problems. Fortunately the area I cut is now fairly clean. The spindles themselves also showed some wear. Three have significant grooving adjacent to the blade mounting hole. I think this may be caused by blades not being properly tightened. One had a broken grease nipple which came out with a screw extractor.

Top three spindles worn adjacent to blade mounting hole. The lower three should clean up okay for re-use.

When I dismantled the previous decks I cleaned and stored all of the parts. I had eight spindle housings that although eroded to varying degrees appeared suitable for re-use. I cleaned all of the loose crud off and found some large, heavy washers. I sealed up the bores with a pair of washers and a long bolt and had the housings sand blasted.

Spindle housings ready for blasting, along with Eaton 100 casing.

Blasted and ready for paint.

I painted the housings with two coats of KBS which is similar to POR. I used black for the first coat and silver over that so I could see I had good coverage. Some of the housings are severely pitted, the wet grass eats away at the aluminium. However, I think that these are pretty well all original spindles so they have had a hard life for twenty plus years. Hopefully the paint will slow the corrosion somewhat.

I assembled six spindles, one set for the new galvanised deck and another for the one I used last year as a backup.

Here are the three worst housings, with the most erosion. Not pretty, but still sound.

I was fortunate that I had quite a number of good parts and sorted through to make up six sets of everything I need.

[Aussie 98]

I packed the bearings with grease. I use a grease filled syringe to get the grease right in around the rollers.

Then I seated the bearings in the housing with a screw press. Remember to put the spacer bush in the housing before the second bearing.

Fitted the circlips below the bottom bearing and these three housings are ready to go.

The blades from the rusty top deck were in reasonable condition so I sharpened them up with a sanding disc in an angle grinder. I decided to fit the blades to the spindles in my vise so I could get the correct tension on the nuts. Secured the spindle by the hex, fitted the thin washer, blade and did the nut up to 100 ft lbs in three stages. Didn't look right though, there appeared to be too much thread showing.

Stop, think, remember - large washer goes under the nut. Try again, much better!

When I took the spindles out of the last deck the reinforcing plate sat up at the front and I could see corrosion underneath it. I took the plate off and although not as bad as the previous one, this deck shell also has a significant amount of corrosion on top from water getting under the reinforcing plate.

I bolted the reinforcing plate onto the galvanised deck and tightened it up with a bolt through each spindle mount. I wasn't happy with the fit-up as there were some quite large gaps evident. I decided to drill some holes and fit four additional bolts to secure the reinforcing plate to the shell. There are two at the front and two at the back, roughly halfway between the spindle mounts. I then ran a bead of silicone all the way around the join and spindle mounts and bolted it up with the spindle bosses in place.

Next I started fitting the brackets for the deck frame. Hopefully I can get some more done tomorrow.

[chazm 413]

Good thread on deck rebuild, Aussie     I need to do mine ,so thanks for the info from down under 

[Aussie 98]

I don't have a lot more to show yet. I fitted the bar for the rear wheels and rollers with the height adjuster. I put the bolts for the adjuster quadrant in upside down, these normally have the nuts under the deck. It stops me using the lowest position on the quadrant, but I never cut that low anyway. Should be easier to undo this way up, if it requires dismantling in future.

The front brackets for the hanger frame don't have a reinforcement plate where they bolt to the shell. I had an offcut of galv flat bar soI made up a couple to suit. Should reduce flexing and stress.

When I dismantled the decks I noticed that all of the long side bars on the hanger frames are worn away where they rub on the front brackets as the deck goes up and down. I got some thin UHMW PE sheet and cut a pair of sections to fit on the outside of the brackets. I drilled a 1/4" hole at the top of the bracket for a small bolt to secure the sheet and the original deck stop bolt at the bottom end. I think it would be hard to glue this stuff on as it is so slippery. I'll see if it lasts.

A bit hard to see in the picture because the white material doesn't contrast with the galv bracket.

I will also reverse the brackets when I refit them so the worn edges are on the outside. I used those least worn for this deck, some of the others I will build back up with weld in future.

Next I went through my parts stash and refit the deck adjuster and pulleys. I will paint some up later on but need to get this finished and my e-tank is currently down.

I used bolts with a flat washer and spring to retain the spindle housings instead of the original bolts with thread locking compound. Doesn't work on the outer spindles as there isn't enough clearance under the pulley. Have to redo that but I don't have any 3/4 bolts and those I used at 1" stick through too far without the washers.

Closest spindle has washers removed.

More to come, hopefully completion next time!

[meadowfield 2,570]

looking great!

[wrightorchid 261]

An older post, but still very helpful on the nuts and bolts of a deck rebuild.  Gives me a few ideas.  It looks like the older decks did not have the reinforcement that seems to be so important.