Broken zerk fitting on deck spindle
 

I have a 44A deck and one of the zerk fittings on an outside spindle is broken. It appears to be pressed in (and is not listed separate on the fiche). I found a thread on busted zerks in the front end saying to to remove the sleeve and pound them in. If I pound it in, I am not sure I will be able to recover the broken peice out of the spindle (I have never been inside the spindle assy)
Thanks

Drill it out, tap the hole and put a threaded one in.

What is the best way to avoid getting metal shavings down in the hole when you do this? Any tricks?

What's always worked for me is coating the drill bit in grease then doing a revolution or two at a time. The shavings have always stuck to the drill bit/grease for me.

:IH Trusted Hand:

Just my 2 cents but I would remove the shaft, drill out the broken zerk tap it for a screw in zerk, pump some grease through it then reassemble it. One little chip will trash a bearing.

so are you saying you would press off the bearings? I tore it down to the spindle/bearings. tomorrow I can get it on a press, but I was debating if I wanted to try pressing them off. The bearings feel OK, but look really rough and there was a lot of rust in the cup

If the bearings do NOT have a perfect finish on the surface, they are junk. Any imperfection will cause failure. They are a precision component.

They're junk.

I see now that they are not serviceable. Time to :beatdeadhorse:. Tomorrow I am going to drill out the broken zerk tap it and hopefully get a new fitting in. Then blast everything else grease it all and reassemble and see what happens. This is a camp mower, maybe I can get a season or 2 out of it
thanks for the help

Sorry I thought you had the type that you can just remove the spindle shaft. If you need a set of these I have a set that came out of a rotted out deck. PM me with your e-mail address and I'll send you full size pics of them.

If I need parts I have a few spare decks, but they are complete and I would rather not start taking parts off.
As a new "twist" the part that is broken off in the spindle appears to be either a tap or an easy out (makes a starter drill look soft). Apparently I am not the first guy to think he could fix this. I may be naive, but I think the cups and the mating surfaces of the bearing assy cleaned up well enough to seat properly

How about welding an extension on the shaft with a new zerk fitting?

Drill through the extension, tap for the zerk, weld on the end of the existing shaft. Assumes that the grease can flow down past the broken tap or whatever is in the existing shaft.

Interesting idea Sawdustdad, but that puppy is stuck and sealed. I have time on my side, so I am looking around for a carbide bit. They are $20 for one that might work and $40 for the 4 sided bit that should work, that is near my pain level of taking one out of my complete/spare decks. A coworker threw out putting a zerk somewhere else, which got me thinking, a zerk won't fit in the cup but I have the assy out, so I could drill a hole in the middle of the bearing hub, thread it for a zerk, lube it, pull the zerk and plug it with a screw that clears the cup when assembled. That would either work and get me thru a season or 2 or the bearings are toast and I didn't waste $ trying to drill out the hardened plug

As a machinist, attempting to drill thru hardened material is a total PITA. You do not know if the previous attempts cracked the tap/ez out. If they did, it'll snap that carbide cutter before you know what happened.

The other idea seems like a good way to go.

Might be totally offbase but I seem to recall the use of a EDM would be the ticket in removing the tap or easy out.

comments Jeff ?

EDM would work but you're looking at $60 minimum charge. Pretty good chunk of change for a common item ( mower spindle)

Looking @ your pictures, it appears that they are the old style spindles.
I replaced the old style on my 50C deck with ones from a newer style
46" deck (from a junk 1720 Deck.)
They are aluminum housings with easily replaced, less costly, tapered auto wheel bearings.
-----just a thought

Sometimes, you can break them with a punch.... if the piece isn't too big. :bigthink:

I took a dremel and cut a slot into the easy out hoping I could turn it out with a screwdriver. No luck. Someone must have pounded the easy out in. I had it under a stereoscope and I could barley even see the seam where the easy out met the old pressed in remains of the zerk. As I ground down the gap stays tight. I also drilled a few small holes in the old press in hoping I could pry it out. It's looking more like I will have to steal one off a spare deck

Can you post a pic of the spindle?

I'll try to get some pics, I have it at work where I have a few more toys. At this point the top is looking pretty trashed. Yesterday I pulled one off a spare deck, so I could get the 1250 back together and move onto my sons 129. The spare was an older deck (38" with the bigger center blade). That spindle has the large screw in zerk which also holds the pulley on. Other than that and the pulley being smaller the parts are interchangeable, so I put the larger pulley on the old assy and bolted it on

Probably not worth trying to save the old one based on what you have said. Glad you were able to fix the deck with the other spindle.