Quote:
Originally Posted by amanfrromthere
Thanks. On a good deck, how freely should the blades spin by hand?
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There should be little resistance to rotation, and hardly any slop if you lift up and down out on the tip of the blade. The best way to check is with the belt removed so you can spin each spindle independently, plus the pressure of the belt won't allow you to see how much lost motion you really have. When you spin a blade (carefully I might add) you shouldn't hear a lot of growling--that's an indication the bearings are gone or are on the way. If you remove the belt, also see how well the idler pulley on the deck spins AND look for a lot of up and down motion in the arm it mounts to--sometimes that bolt and bushing need replacing.
One other thing when inspecting a deck is to see if the blade tips are at equal heights. The amount of misalignment you can tolerate somewhat depends on are you mowing a nice lawn in a subdivision or are you trimming the outlying areas around the barn where rocks/stumps/mystery objects await.