C195 deck for GT14/16

[Aldon 4,826]

Well I'm finally getting around to finishing the job of refreshing / partial restoration of the 60" deck I picked up from @stevebobefore the big show this year.  Steve had done a lot of the heavy lifting on this. Sand blasted the deck, primed and put a quick coat of paint on it and had gathered addition spindle parts etc but I ended up stripping the underside and coating it with rust killer and reprinting underside. I am not sure when Steve started this but add 3-4 months of it sitting in my garage and the paint on the top side had been put through a lot of abuse sitting in storage, garages or sheds.

 

So I finally have gotten to assembly. It was more tedious and difficult than I thought it would be. 

 

Like many things if I knew what a pain this was going to be I probably would have shied away from the project. Assembly was easy. Disassembly of 50 year old deck parts is as many of you know enough to break weaker individuals.

 

I still have a few things left to wrap this up but it is easily within sight now. Need to get a new deck belt. Re-Install the Attachamatic hanger. Clean the anti seize from the pulleys new black paint possibly. Install the belt cover and it should be ready to test drive on Lazarus or Elijah. 

 

I had had hoped I would have a couple complete spindles when I was done for spares but I don't think it's going to work out that way.

 

Steve had some older lightly used or nos blades but all had rusted as time took its toll but the set on the deck cleaned up nicely with sandblast and paint followed up by sharpening.

 

Ill post a couple picks once it's completel assembled and installed under the GT14.

 

Of course if for some reason it will not work as planned, I guess I'll be marketing a completely refreshed deck in classifieds:-(

 

I really like the idea of all new bearings and fresh deck. Should be years before I have to do deep dive on these decks again.

 

the last pic is the spindle spacer on bottom side which in my little experience is the most brittle and irksom part of the task of tearing this particular spindle down as the woodruff key rust welds  the spacer to the spindle and it is cast so brittle.

The threads on few of these spindles were shot as well. 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2016 by Aldon

[WHX?? 48,762]

17 minutes ago, Aldon said:

coating it with rust killer

What did you use and what kind of paint Aldon?

Those wheels are the bomb ...pneumatic or never flats??

Also are my eyes playing tricks again or is that center blade smaller??

I could be wrong but I think you are did a bang up job on it. Almost looks too nice to dirty up with grass clippings!

 

[Aldon 4,826]

Thanks for the compliments.

 

1) I have given up hope of painting at really high quality. I just don't have the patience nor the facilities to do it right. As such I have settled on what works best for me. I have found that even within rustoleum line up, many of the paints react poorly if I use the acid etch primer. So on the bottom after sanding to the metal I coated with Rust Killer from tractor supply. After curing I then coated with rustoleum acid etch primer. Perhaps overkill but I really don't like working on decks as much as tractors so overkill is warranted. I have found that the appliance paints by rustoleum put a really tough shiney coat over the acid etch primer and at least with the black and white I have not had a reaction. So black appliance enamel by Rustoleum. 

2) for spindles and blades. Sand blast lightly on spindles to stop aluminum corrosion. Acid etch primer followed by Rustoleum metal finish. Had to be more aggressive with blasting the blades.

3) top - not sure what Steve used which ended up a base coat for Rustoleum Toro Red implement paint. ( I only find this at lowes ).

4) on these C195 Decks the center blade is smaller and has slightly different spacing depth wise as there is no octagonal spacer like on the two sides. At least it was that way on the previous C195 deck. i had a smaller Massey deck set up that way as well a few years ago although not as wide a deck. The cut from that Massey deck was awesome.

5) decks rear wheels were inordinately heavy. I can get replacement very similar from harbor freight but decided to try these "solid no flats" from Tractor Supply. I had to add bushings but I believe these are going to work great, are cheap enough to replace occasionally and are lighter by far than what was on the deck. I am trying to plan ahead for maintenance and handling and my age does not seem to be stopping so I am also assuming it's only going to get harder to handle this stuff. Not easier😎

[elcamino/wheelhorse 9,295]

@Aldon Man I like your work. What size are the deck wheels ? They should last a long time.

[Aldon 4,826]

These are 8 inch wheels. The come with a bit bigger ID bearing so I sleeved the bolt with bushing. I pulled the wheels apart as they had a weak powder coat finish and low quality bolts. I sand blasted the metal, etch primed and black appliance coated the metal pieces and re-assembled using grade 8 stuff from tractor supply. Buying their grade 8 by the pound is not cheap but pretty reasonable so I have a lot of it in garage from the tractor resto. They did come out looking good.

[JERSEYHAWG / Glenn 4,497]

A+, top notch job. Beats my work by a mile.

 

Glenn

[Aldon 4,826]

Just having right tools for the job.

 

Having ability to sand blast at home is very convenient.

 

Paint covers a lot of defects. And shiney wet paint makes it look way better than in person.

[JERSEYHAWG / Glenn 4,497]

6 minutes ago, Aldon said:

Just having right tools for the job.

 

Having ability to sand blast at home is very convenient.

 

Paint covers a lot of defects. And shiney wet paint makes it look way better than in person.

Your to modest, Imho.

 

Glenn

[mmmmmdonuts 274]

Nice job Aldon. Love the flat free wheels. They look fantastic 

[stevebo-(Moderator) 8,330]

Good to see this one finally being put back together! Love it.

[Aldon 4,826]

I'd call it 99% done.

 

I did not realize until the very end that I had blasted and painted two belt cover pieces for the same side. So I have this ready to install on mower once I have the other belt cover painted and installed. Primer is drying. 

 

[Aldon 4,826]

So potentially the last update.

 

In a nutshell, the modification of adding newer style attach-a-matic brackets to the GT14 makes this tractor very close to ideal yard and garden tractor for me.

 

My only real critique was that with the 42 inch rear discharge deck, I could not leave the grass height as high as I would prefer or in other words, the cut was too short.

 

I was in process of restoring both a 48 inch deck but also this C195 60 inch deck in parallel. But I needed a couple bracket parts for the 48 which I will get in way of a parts deck at Stevebo's meet and greet in a few weeks.

 

Hence, all effort was focused on the 60 inch deck.

 

I finished it today.

 

Also had to swap out the 40 year old starter so it took me the greater part of morning to wrap everything up. Clearance is tight but it does fully clear at complete rotation of the front tires and clears all heights in the rear.

 

I can already tell that I will likely favor this deck as it looks like with this set up I will gain over an inch and possibly 2-3 inches in additional height of cut. My hydraulic lift snapped the chain so I can't confirm just how high not to mention grass has almost ceased to grow here. I'll get that lift issue fixed in next day or so.

 

Only negative is that to get it under tractor I had to lift the front end. The good news is that the C195 deck is about same weight, at least it feels so to me, to the Wheel Horse 48 inch deck.

 

I did make a pass in the side lot at the lowest setting and deck functioned flawlessly.

 

If I'm lucky I'll now with it one last time if weather permits this fall and then pull deck and install snow blade.

 

By the way, the K321 is more than enough power even with hydro.

 

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by Aldon

[ztnoo 2,298]

Pretty impressive, Mr. T!

Nice job.

The bigger the area to mow, the more a guy would appreciate a 60" deck.

Looks great on your GT 14!.

 

No cessation of mowing thought here.

It's growing like May and June.

Edited September 21, 2016 by ztnoo

[Aldon 4,826]

So I got the lift chain situated. I need to spend an afternoon with tractor on a lift as I am certain I can get more lift but here is the maiden voyage first cutting. I think I just topped the grass about .5-.75 of an inch but nonetheless I wanted to give it a beta trial. I like it UT unless I can get it to raise higher (I think something is binding) then the 48 inch deck may be comparable and easier to manage around the trees in the rest of my yard. Really like this deck though. Light enough to manhandle as long as I pay attention:-)

[mmmmmdonuts 274]

Looks really good Aldon. Do you hit the wheels when making a tight turn or does it clear it all the way? From the pictures it looks close. 

[Aldon 4,826]

5 minutes ago, mmmmmdonuts said:

Looks really good Aldon. Do you hit the wheels when making a tight turn or does it clear it all the way? From the pictures it looks close. 

While the deck is lowered such as when I hooked it up, there is no clearance issue although it is close fit. Once the deck is raised to its highest point, I did rub slightly while in reverse with the wheel all the way at the stops turned to the right. I do not foresee this being a maneuver that I will perform enough to be of significant impact.

 

And if I had standard turf tires it would be completely free to move. The Vredsteins are a bit bigger profile. I have not actually measured but from my memory that's my opinion.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Aldon

[Aldon 4,826]

So I decided to make a few modifications to the Dexk as well as the mounting of the mule. Also decided to mount it to Elijah so I can mount the snow blade to Lazarus. Basically I shifted the mule off center about .5-.75 inches which now allows almost steering stop to steering stop without rubbing so almost no issue regardless of height of deck. I also determined the the reason I was unable to get the deck raised as high as I had hoped was due to the rear uprights on the attach-a-matic hanger. So I drilled a bolt holes lower and then cut off the excess height. The pic only shows the new holes. This allows me almost 1.25-1.5 inches of increased height adjustment. I finally have a WheelHorse that I can cut my lawn with to a more preferable cut height. The cut is awesome and it's amazing how much faster I was able to cut the lawn. However with the additional width their is a tremendous amount of torque should you catch the deck on a tree or other immovable object. Just thought that since I had resolved the shortcomings I would post the results.

[JERSEYHAWG / Glenn 4,497]

Looks bad to the bone. Nicey nice.

 

Glenn