RM-366 Mower Deck - Looking For Ideas

[jebbear 377]

Getting ready to start rebuilding (hopefully upgrading) my RM-366 mower deck for my 856 Tractor (separate thread as "My 856 Project" under the restorations category). Thought I would post this here looking for some potential ideas from you guys that may have rebuilt, restored, upgraded, modified this particular deck or something very similar. Near as I can tell, the RM-366 deck and the RM-367 are almost identical other than year of mfg. and there may be some others that are very similar.

 

My question is, has anyone with a similar deck ever made any upgrades/modifications to one of these decks to improve on the problematic "wear areas" at the bearing points of the drag link, bracket hanger, pivot tube, and quick hitch assembly as shown in the photos below? Just doesn't seem like a very good original design to suspend the entire weight of this deck along with being subjected to other external forces on the thin edges of only about 1/8" on the drag link and hanger bearing directly on the pivot tube. Would like to improve on this if its possible and thought maybe some of you veterans may have some ideas or something that you may have tried that works (or didn't work for that matter) to mitigate this wear. I realize these decks are designed to be "floating" decks, but don't really like it when the deck starts floating laterally when wear takes over.

 

Now for the photos:

 

These are the areas that I would like to address...

 

This is a close-up of the original design in the pivot tube area (minus the snap rings and washer). If any of you have followed my thread on the tractor itself, i have been adding an abundance of bronze bearings in wear and pivot points on the tractor and would like to modify this in some way similar. The problem is with what I call the "staggered mount" between the drag link and the hanger whereas the drag link is not mounted between the side plates of the hanger but rather alternate inside to outside (see photo). This makes it a little difficult to directly mount a flange bearing in one of the surfaces, especially with the snap rings on the pivot tube.

 

This is the original pivot tube showing the wear at these hanger locations as well as the snap ring grooves...

 

Years ago I made a modification to this same area by turning a "modified" pivot tube and utilizing a combination of bronze bearings whereas the pivot tube was bolted stationary to the side of the hanger bracket and all rotation was limited to the bearing points of the drag link rather than the hanger. This actually worked "relatively" well but still had some issues after years of service. I may pursue something similar this time around, and hopefully someone a lot smarter than me might have a better solution.

 

As for the wear on the quick hitch assembly shaft where it mounts to the tractor brackets, I am probably just going to fabricate a new one and maybe turn it to accept a couple of bronze bearings at least in the areas marked "severe" wear points.

 

I hope that I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here, just attempting to make something that has been a problem spot in the past a little bit better. Any ideas or suggestions that you may have tried (or thought about trying) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

Edited March 6, 2019 by jebbear

[ronhatch 406]

How about incorporating flanged oil lite bushing in all 4 areas and hold the whole thing together with bolts and spacer tubes so when the time comes, it would be easy to replace the bushings. 

Edited March 9, 2019 by ronhatch

[jebbear 377]

Thanks for the input Ron. That's kind of what I had in mind & similar to what I did before with the "modified" pivot tube in combination with specially fabricated bronze bearings that are unique to this application. The only downside is it's difficult to install the bearings in the pivot areas as they are only about 1/8" wide (the thickness of the steel) at the bracket & drag link. The original design (see photo) used a series of snap rings on both sides of the thin area, which also leaves no space for a flange. Also, keep in mind that the cross shaft runs through the pivot tube so nothing can be installed internally through the tube. The main issue is figuring a good way of holding it all together where the bearings don't work their way out of their minimal mounting areas. This has definitely been a head-scratcher for sure!