Tractor Repair

Last weekend I started cutting the grass on my relatively new tractor. On the first pass down the edge I was abruptly stopped by loud metallic banging as the blades came into contact with something other than grass. In the panic of the moment, I edged forward. The bangs stopped, but the blades no longer had the normal spinning sound that I'd come to expect. On looking down, I noticed that one of the blade shafts was out of alignment, so unhappily, the tractor and I retreated back to the garage.

On further inspection and after a flurry of tool-box activity, it appeared that a mower blade had hit a piece of steel rod that was poking out of the ground. Not only had it taken some good sized chunks out of the blade, but it had also broken (as in completely severed) the mandrel housing (for the blade shaft) away from the 4 mounting bolts.


I don't like things to be broken, it's an annoyance to say the least. I quickly pulled out the parts manual on got on the web-site to determine the replacement parts that were needed. It turned out that the mandrel bearing (15) and shaft bearing (13) where good, so I only needed to replace the mandrel housing (14). However, when the mandrel broke, the pulley (32) was pulled in by the tension in the deck drive belt, which also tore up the belt somewhat, so to be on the safe-side, I ordered one of those too.


After the order was placed, Erin and I went out with pick-axe and hack-saw in hand to remove the offending piece of metal rod:


The expedited order was placed on Sunday, the parts arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and I was back on my tractor in the evening.