Deck leveling trouble, front mount rod bent?
 

Hi there,

I just bought a used GT 2550. I needed something beefier to handle my sloped lawn and it sure fits the bill. That said, it's been well used so I've been fixing a few things to get it back into top shape. I'm having an issue with leveling the deck from front to back. Right now the back is a full inch higher than the front, instead of the the 1/8" - 1/4" it should be. The front mount rod is adjusted all the way tight, leaving no more ability to raise the front further.

I suspect the front mount rod is bent. The previous owner (not original) had mentioned the front of the deck catching on his trailer. Perhaps he bent it, or it was catching because it was already bent and hanging low when he bought it?

Anyhow, I am hoping for some input. I am going to try and attach a photo in hopes that someone can tell me if it looks off visually. What would be even better is if I could get an angle measurement of the front mount rod so I know what it is supposed to be. I think I'll be having to get out a torch and doing some bending back to shape. Thanks for any help!

Great... posting from my phone the attached phot ended up upside down... sorry about that!

Trying this one more time after rotating the image back and forth within my phone. Fingers crossed...

I had the same problem with one of those. Ended up threading the front mount rods about another 1/2" so that I could get more adjustment. Crappy MTD design. :bash2:

Ran into the same thing when I got my 2185, it was a combination of the rod bent and the mount slots worn.

If the slots don't look terribly worn, you could probably bent the rod to where the deck rides right, or just replace both parts with new.

Sorry, missed the part in your post about the angle.

Using a Johnson angle finder protractor thing I got, I measured mine at 90 degrees on the deck part and 70 degrees on the frame part; so the angle is 160 degrees by my measurement.

ETA: do you have a shop press or a big vise and a pipe? I would think bending it cold would be better for the part than heating it; might change the temper of the metal.

Thank you all for the replies! Very helpful!

I don't have a vise to secure it for a cold bend, or a die set to cut the thread further. However, I can likely get access to one of those two to get a fix done.

I had the same problem with one the dealer had the bracket behind both nuts instead of having the bracket between the nuts and the deck wouldn't lift at all in the front since brand new . I welded spacers about 1" past the end of the threads and a spacer in front of the bracket then the 2 nuts . I also cut 1 1/2" off the end of the threads because it was hitting the one idler pulley bolt . it worked out great customer said it always cut lower with the center blade till I fixed the bracket... I figured that some how it had the wrong u- bolt since it was new ....