[John.J.Heise]

Lance and all,
First off, Lance, you are most welcome. I gave this country and our Navy 28 years of service, and would do it again right now if they were to let me. But it did a number on me physically, so I have to be very careful with how I do a lot of things.... Still no real regrets though.

Second off, as you will see in the pictures below... yeah... the spring was the issue. LOOK AT THE SIZE DIFFERENCES!!!

So, I yanked the deck back out yesterday, I do love how easy installation and removal of the deck is on these things, and thoroughly greased it. I had to thread the center spindle for a grease fitting, and it took thirty to forty pumps on the grease gun to get grease coming out of the bottom collar at the blade, but I did get it. After that, I re-installed the deck, got the belt on, put the spring in, and tightened the tensioner nut. I fired the old beast up and eased the PTO handle forward... the blades started to spin so I fully engaged the PTO and throttled up.... no belt jump, no weird noses, a little vibration, but all and all, good to go. I am going to go do some actual mowing here in a minute and will report back. I have some big tall nasty stuff that the wife doesn't want to take her Crapsman through... so the big, old, nasty, ugly, Cub is going to do it.... And maybe I can get a real yard again, instead of a jungle...

Here are the pics...

Thanks all for all the help, I greatly appreciate it. I hope that I can be as helpful to others as you guys have been to me.

John