1811's turn in the shop

[Oak]

Looking good John. Sometimes they fight you all the way but I'm thinking you got this one by the _alls now. I'd take that paint back to TSC and trade it in for some of the Slip-Plate they have.

[J-Mech]

Looks good John!

Aaron at xtreme makes new lower grass screens.....

Did you take the motor apart yet?

[john hall]

Originally Posted by Oak

Looking good John. Sometimes they fight you all the way but I'm thinking you got this one by the _alls now. I'd take that paint back to TSC and trade it in for some of the Slip-Plate they have.

I thought about it actually but to be honest I didn't paint the underside of the deck except where the spindles and a reinforcing plate I made is going. I was afraid to sandblast the deck as it is not in the best condition. If it were clean, then I would have at the least painted it--I have wanted to try some sort of "slick" paint/coating to see how it would work.

Originally Posted by J-Mech

Looks good John!

Aaron at xtreme makes new lower grass screens.....

Did you take the motor apart yet?

I priced the screens, but my buddy at work can put them back together for free--except for the missing corner of this one.

Engine is still together waiting on a gasket set to arrive. If the valves have to be ground I'll probably spring for a set of rings. With good compression and no oil smoke it would probably be fine.

[john hall]

Slowly making progress. Put new bearings and seals in the deck spindles. I bought them from Oreileys auto for about $115 which included an extra seal in case I screwed one up or had to open back up a spindle unit. Seals and bearings are National. One thing I did also was to put the spacers that actually run in the seals on the lathe and polish them--they were so rough the seals wouldn't have stood a chance. Pitting was so bad I replaced a couple with others from the "parts dept". Had to put new nuts on the top (pulley side) of the spindles. Also had to replace all the pulleys, the others had deep pitted rust. Surface rust would have been OK with polishing. It didn't matter what I would have done to these pulleys, they were so rough they would have eaten a new belt within an hour. Put on a new idler as well. The idler arm and shoulder bolt were fairly recent replacements. Put on a new Kevlar belt. The rear gauge wheels are in decent shape. Got to make a new shaft for the front roller and then replace the bushings in the front gauge wheels. Still have to clean, straighten and then pop-rivet the serial tag back on.

We can't figure out what this deck was exposed to, but it caused some strange rust/corrosion. The large reinforcing plate was corroded horribly on both sides as well as the area it rests on the deck. The rest of the deck was decent with a lot of paint. When I say corroded, I mean I had to use a hand grinder to start removing rust with a hard stone, then move up to a flap disc, then to a wire brush before treating with RustMort. Where the deck hangers bolt was so rusted around the footprint that the deck warped. I made a reinforcement plate (3/8 x 2 1/2 or 3 x long enough to span both hangers) that went on the underside of the deck. The deck is sandwiched in between the hangers and the reinforcement plate. Added a couple extra holes to bolt the plate in between the hangers. 2 of the bearing housings looked pretty good, just nasty. One was corroded severely on the outside, makes no sense. The inside of all 3 were good except water had gotten in one and rusted the bearings. One housing was missing the top seal, 2 of the bottom seals were gutted, no shields/cups on the top side and one on the bottom side had deteriorated to the point it only qualified as a washer. Would you believe all the blade nuts screwed off without an air wrench? Mower has what I guess are Gator blades. I had a lot of trouble sharpening them. I doubt they had ever been touched up, yet they were heavily pitted and very hard to grind. Never did get them "razor sharp" but they should do fine.

[Dirty Steve]

John, that looks too good to use...

Excellent work!!

[jaynjeep]

John,

You had your work cut out for you there!

Looks great though!! Your hard work and efforts are paying off!

[zippy1]

Deck looks good from here.
Where was the deck "stored" before you got it? If it was in an old damp barn/shed, maybe it was a rat motel, and they're pee is real hard on metal...

[john hall]

Originally Posted by zippy1

Deck looks good from here.
Where was the deck "stored" before you got it? If it was in an old damp barn/shed, maybe it was a rat motel, and they're pee is real hard on metal...

Not certain where the deck was kept. The guy I got the outfit from only owned it for a little while and never used it other than drove around the yard. Look at my M18 thread in the engine section and you'll see why. We aren't positive this deck was even under the mower. It just looked way too rough compared to the rest of the machine. It had to have been stored somewhere damp because even outside it would have dried off sometime, the blades are covered in nasty rust. I've seen damage from mouse pee before and this is way to widespread and uniform. Hopefully what I didn't grind away the Rust-Mort will stop.

[john hall]

OK, calling the deck complete (minus decals if I can ever find or make them) until I can get the tractor part running to test the deck out. I had to replace the bushing in one of the front gauge wheels, install new bolts in those wheels--drilled and tapped them for a grease fitting. The two bolts I used have different head designs--don't tell anyone but one of them is from Deere! Also made a new pin/axle for the scalping roller. Yeah I know its not that precision to start with but it had grooves .070" deep where it goes through the deck and the overall dia. was .030" smaller than the replacement I used. Yeah I know, its a plastic roller but when you split hairs all day in a machine shop, its kind of hard not to when you get home. When I get a chance I'll figure out some decals.

In the meantime, we pulled the engine back out, heads off. Valves appear shot, haven't pulled jugs to see if pistons are useable. Hopefully, valve job, new piston and rings, face heads and we can ride. It ain't like I plan on using this 150 hours a year so I'll cut corners anywhere I don't think I'll get bit. I have a thread in the engine section about the M18.

[zippy1]

Look identical to me John.