mower blade height

[BigDaddyO 11]

Hello,

 

I'm wondering if the blades on the mower deck are supposed to be flush with the bottom of the mower deck lip, I assumed they should be recessed about 1/2 way up.  I just tried my mower for the first time yesterday and it was scalping my lawn pretty bad even with the mower deck height adjustment set to the highest level.  I ended up finishing the lawn by raising the entire mower deck using that lifting arm on the left of the tractor.

 

Thanks for any insight.

Mike

Edited June 21, 2022 by BigDaddyO
Photos Added

[8ntruck 6,993]

Any chance the blades are mounted on the spindles upside down?  The bevel in the cutting edge and the bent tabs at the ends of the blades should be facing away from the ground.

 

What kind of deck is it, and can you tell us a little about its history?

[BigDaddyO 11]

it's a 42" deck and I just got the lawn tractor a few weeks ago.  Got it running but this was my first mow.

I just watched a video on how to use the Tach-a-Matic so i'm going to go try to remove the deck now.  Will report back with photos later.

[peter lena 8,589]

@BigDaddyO  do your self a favor on deck removal , and once unhitched ,remove it from the pto lever side , that way the deck height adjustment is not in the way , I  also lower it to lowest setting to help it clear the frame area , once you do this a couple of times , it makes sense . also have a look at  deck under side build up and any rusty debris , your pictures will help out , pete

[lynnmor 7,302]

If you don't have the owners manuals for the tractor and the mower, download them on this site.

 

Usually the blades cut just a short distance from the deck bottom.

 

Sharpen the blades properly, check the mower wheels for wear, level the deck per the manual, adjust the transport height, then retest the cut.  Know that these tractors do cut shorter than most.

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

3 hours ago, BigDaddyO said:

insight

 

Hi Big Daddy, welcome to the forum!

 

Post some pics of the machine if you can.

 

 

[BigDaddyO 11]

I've added photos to the first post.  Looks like i'm missing a wide wheel on the back of the deck and i'm not seeing any way to raise the blades.  it's really weird how they are so far from the deck top.

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

15 minutes ago, BigDaddyO said:

weird how they are so far from the deck top

 

It is...

 

I wonder if someone installed the wrong spindles...  they 'look' like WH spindles.

 

Just measured the spindles on my 42" rear discharge and my 48" side discharge and they are both 4" from the bottom of the blade to the deck.

 

 

What do yours measure?

 

I'm sure you're going to clean all that globbed up grass ... and that you know leaving those globs on there is sure to rot that deck out in short order.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Jeff-C175

[8ntruck 6,993]

Yup.  The blades are mounted correctly.  The distance from the top of the deck to the blade does look odd.

[BigDaddyO 11]

just measured, it's 4-1/8" from deck to the blade

 

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

17 minutes ago, BigDaddyO said:

just measured, it's 4-1/8" from deck to the blade

 

 

Close enough for horse shoes...

 

Any idea how old that deck might be?  I was just looking through spindle charts and such to see if there was any indication that there may be shorter spindles on some decks.  No measurements shown.

 

How about from the deck to the lip of the deck?  I'm going out to look at my 42" now... I'll measure that.  Can't do the 48 cuz it's under a machine.

 

 

[BigDaddyO 11]

here is another question, is a 42" deck the width of the blade cut?  because I measured from the outside of the left wheel to the right most portion of the shoot and it's 48"  the guy I bought it from said it was a 42" deck so I was a bit annoyed that it was actually 48" total width which didn't fit through my existing gate.

 

 

[BigDaddyO 11]

the total height of the deck = 5"

I re-measured from the inside of the deck to the blade and it's 4-1/2"  There is a bump that the spindle is attached to which is what the previous measurement was from.

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

6 minutes ago, BigDaddyO said:

is a 42" deck the width of the blade cut?

 

Cutting width.  I believe yours is a 42" because the height adjustment is on the right side.  48" has that on the left.

 

I measured both my decks and the height of the side walls is between 4" on the FRONT of the 42" REAR discharge, and 5" on the SIDE walls.  The 48" as near as I can tell is about the same.

 

I don't think yours is actually wrong.  As long as the blades are 'recessed' by about 1/2" to 1" it's correct.

 

 Your problem may be here:

 

 

You know that lever on the right is the 'height of cut' lever, right?

 

It's shown all the way down at the lowest setting.

 

The wheels appear to be worn way down, that's going to get you that much closer to the turf.

 

When installed, this 'fork' needs to be on the bar on the attach-a-matic, was it ?

 

 

This adjustment is for the front / back leveling of the deck when in the cutting position you use the most.  The manual says to adjust with it in the middle setting, but if you typically mow higher or lower I would adjust it so the front tip of the blades is about 1/8 to 1/4 inch lower than the rear.  

 

 

And yeah, that missing wheel needs to be there too.  The deck rides on those when in the cutting position.  The front ones not so much.  They typically 'float' above the ground and are really there only to keep the front of the deck from 'digging in'.   You could move the center front one to the rear until you can get a replacement.

 

Do you have any idea at all how old  your deck is?  Any labels on it anywhere?  (I don't see any!)

 

 

 

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

@BigDaddyO

 

DaddyO,  wondering if you've found the MANUALS section on here yet?

 

Here's a link that will take you to a page with all of the mower deck files with "42in SD" in the title.  One of them will likely be for your deck.  There wasn't a whole lot of difference over the years but look through and see if the manual will help you.

 

https://www.wheelhorseforum.com/search/?&q="42in SD"&type=downloads_file&nodes=18&search_and_or=or&search_in=titles&sortby=relevancy

 

 

[Jeff-C175 7,199]

@BigDaddyO

 

Did you figure out what's going on with your deck Big Daddy?

 

 

 

 

[lynnmor 7,302]

Some decks Wheel Horse says to adjust with the front 1/8” high.  I know that doesn’t sound right by I did find that one can get a significant increase in cutting height when the front isn’t hanging down.

 

The size of a deck, like 42” means that it will cut a 42” swath.

[tunahead72 2,411]

19 hours ago, lynnmor said:

Some decks Wheel Horse says to adjust with the front 1/8” high.  I know that doesn’t sound right by I did find that one can get a significant increase in cutting height when the front isn’t hanging down...

 

I've seen that too, in some of the deck owner's manuals.  I'm in the process of raising the front of one of my decks, one turn of the rear trunnion at a time, to see if I can get a little bit more cutting height with the deck down in the usual mowing position.  It seems to be working, with no adverse effects yet that I can see.  I've already replaced the gauge wheels with larger 7" diameter wheels, which also helped, but not really enough.  It's a work in progress.

 

[lynnmor 7,302]

I use one of these, a good and flat floor is needed.