Greasing Blade Spindles

16 years ago

What is the typical construction of a mower deck blade spindle? Are there usually ball bearings at each end of the spindle housing? If so how much air space between the shaft and the housing in between the bearings? I guess what I'm asking is if a spindle was new with absolutely no grease inside, how many pumps of grease until it reaches the bearings? I pumped about 6 pumps (the manual suggests 2) into one of the spindles on my deck and was expecting to see some grease coming out one end or the other but saw none. Is grease getting to the bearings or filling air space? I feel like I should keep pumping untill I see some sign of grease and at that point, 2 additional pumps every 10 hours.

I read about premature spindle bearing failure and don't want to discover at some point grease never got to the bearings.

Thanks for any input.

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Comments (8)

baymee
16 years ago
My view is that 2 pumps keeps the bearings full if the entire shaft is full to begin with. Wrong or Right, I pump until I hear the grease escape.
rcmoser
16 years ago
Most of the time when you pump alot of grease in it just comes out on top of the spindle where you can see it. I do like baylee suggested pump two or three times or till I hear the grease popping any more and you got a big bunch of goo somewhere.

Most spindles are serviceable, meaning you can disassemble them and replace brg.'s providing they haven't been bad long enough to wear out the spindle housing. Don't take that much to remove them take the blade and belt off and usually 3 or 4 bolts and the assy. comes out. now you can disassemble them on the bench. clean them, inspect them add grease before you assemble it and reinstall it.
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tomplum
16 years ago
Well, the cheapo spindles on the Deere L series tell you to put in 10-15 pumps when installing. The other belief is the lower bearing will wear first, and the grease will eventually work in even if it has the seal. My suggestion that would go with RC's wise advise would be to consider servicing aluminum bodied spindles while still mounted to the deck as the mounting bolts tend to snap off enough of the time to make the housing un-useable.
greenymower
Original Author
16 years ago
There seems to be a consensus that there is an air gap around the shaft and the spindles should be filled with grease until it just starts to come out at one end or the other of the shaft. This makes sense to me.

Thanks for the comments.
mownie
16 years ago
***"wise advise would be to consider servicing aluminum bodied spindles while still mounted to the deck as the mounting bolts tend to snap off enough of the time to make the housing un-useable."***
I will not dispute the above in its intent but I will add something (a bit of hope maybe).
While having even a single bolt break in the spindle flange is a nuisance, it hardly renders the spindle useless.
If one should happen to have a bolt snap (or all of them), and the spindle casting is sound in all other aspects, the broken bolt can be drilled out to the bolt size (example: 5/16" bolt, drill out broken bolt to 5/16" hole). Remount the spindle to the deck using a "nut & bolt" combination. Insert the bolt from the underside of the deck so that the washers and nut (and exposed threads) will not be buried in grass clippings and dirt. Use bolts of grade 5 or 8 if U.S. standard fasteners. Use bolts graded 8.8 or 10.9 if metric standard fasteners. Coat the entire length of the bolt (not just the threads) with anti-seize compound before installing. Select bolt length so that you only have about 1/4" to 3/8" of threads showing above the nut when everything has been tightened securely.
This fix is not only good for dealing with a BROKEN spindle bolt. Because most of the OEMs use self starting/self cutting bolts during the build process, it is common to remove one of these bolts after being in service and discover that the threads in the hole "came out with the bolt". These bolts can't be reused and the hole now is "unthreaded" (or de-threaded :^).
If you encounter either of these scenarios, drill out the flange to the bolt size and go back with nut & bolt combo.
baymee
16 years ago
Great solution, mownie. And anti-seize is like liquid gold on anything you want to get apart again.
zoulas
16 years ago
GREASING 101, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MANY PUMPS UNTIL YOU SEE IT COME OUT THE OTHER END. I HAVE CLEAR SPINDLES, SO I CAN SEE THE GREASE IN THE SPINDLES. SERIOUS, THINK ABOUT IT.
rcmoser
16 years ago
"My suggestion that would go with RC's wise advise would be to consider servicing aluminum bodied spindles",

I haven't experienced that, but if I did I could probably figure it out, but again I don't have the cheap L series spindles. So in those cases it would be better to just buy new assy. (but again maybe the L not worth putting 39-69 bucks in spindle assy?) especially if your not mechincally incline and have no skills, in that case the 39 spindle turn into a $200-$300 repair bill?