Rebuilding a mower spindle and installing a grease fitting
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 พ.ค. 2022
- This is a how to video on how I rebuild my mower spindles and install a grease fitting so that the spindle bearings can be serviced. The mower I'm working on is a Kubota z122e zero turn 48in cut. I also have Kavli blades fitted and I talk about them also.
Clever idea.
Crap. I just rebuilt 2 of these yesterday and I wish I had seen this video first. I would have definitely done your zirc mod. Sealed bearings are designed obsolesense. They shortly run dry and fail. I have only 260 hours on my Z-421 and the center spindle bearing failed fully with the right side just barely showing early signs of failure so I did them both. The left side was fine. No play or noise on hand spinning it. Good mod. In the future, I'll do this. The only thing I can see it could do is dislodge the grease/dirt shield you left on the outside of the bearing but if you are careful to not over grease, it should be fine. Like you say, the grease will with use, find a way out. Adding back a pump or two at blade sharpening and deck clean out should give the bearings a much longer life. So, it's been 2 years. How did it work out?
Tip for others out there in TH-cam land... to check your spindle bearings, lift the front of your machine how ever you do that, release the belt from one blade pulley so the belt tension is off the system. Go under, grab the tip of each of the blades and wiggle up and down. There should be zero play or movement. It should spin freely and easy with no noise. If you can wiggle it up and down, or they bind and or make any noise, your bearings are failing.
There is another Kobota zero turn video on TH-cam, and his center spindle bearings failed at 160 hours. So apparently, this is an issue. Like I say mine, failed at 260 hours. So get ready. Also unless you have been running failed bearings, you won't need the spacer or shaft they will try to sell you. Just the bearings. Obviously, take yours apart first to assess your needs before ordering. My housings, spacers and shafts were all fine.
If you are into factory torques... Blade bolt- 85 foot pounds. Spindle pulley nut- 120 foot pounds, the 4 spindle to deck nuts- 60 foot pounds, all per the Kobota service manual. Enjoy!
Red Loctite 271 in a grease fitting
24 hr. cure
Pre grease prior to install and grease every season.
Caution
new mower spindle assemblies! DO NOT install mower spindle without a new drilled tapped red loctite in a grease fitting installed.
Nice
On of the best TH-cam videos out there
Thx
and yes
If possible vacuum out the drilling and tap metal debris
but
Those soft metal debris are nothing to a ungreased tons of water tons of dirt tons of wood tons of grass debris that a non-grease fitted mower spindle assembly would see.
so
ITS NBD
It’s been proved that when you grease the spindle with 75-80 pumps of grease gun until the grease comes out the other end does get into sealed bearings. I did it on my John Deere X300.
Interesting blades. Looks like they still cut fairly low. The next time I grease spindles, I'll replace the rubber sealed bearings in my tractor mowers with metal sealed on both sides, like yours, pull the inner seals and go from there. I installed zerk fittings because the old spindles and the new ones don't have them. I didn't want to pull inner rubber seals for fear of the grease pressure popping out the outer ones and making a huge mess, because of the video mentioned below.
There is a video by *Woodchuck Russ the Deck Dr* showing that the inner seal of spindle sealed bearings do not need to be pulled for a grease gun to grease them inside. The title is: *Don’t trust the “Experts” Grease your mower deck sealed spindle bearings Common sense maintenance.* You can find it by the title. But there are other videos which say this doesn't work on all spindles and their bearings. Specifically, John Deere tractor mowers. I don't think it worked on the bearings in the new spindles, so I'll get metal sealed bearings to replace them next servicing time. I think the metal seal would be much harder to pop out. Looked link you had to really work to remove them, while the rubber seals come out easily. Thanks for the video.
If you are willing to make a follow up video on how well the modification lasted, like you mentioned, that would be great and appreciated.
By drilling a small "weep hole" on the other side of your spindle you'll be able to tell when you have pumped enough grease into the spindle and avoid over-filling with grease.
See now that's a good idea.
Nice job , thanks for the video!
Mic, if I may: That is not the best placement of the grease fitting. Between each bearing might work, but you have to pump a TON of grease into the spindle to get some into the top bearing. And it's better to leave both seals on the lower bearing and pull both off the top one. When you grease it, if you don't see grease coming up through the top bearing it didn't get there. Most people won't stay at it that long. And after a big mowing job in warm weather, heat from the belt & pully will travel down the spindle shaft and the grease will warm up & work it's way down out of the upper bearing leaving it dry. Then to make matters worse, the lube guy has to pump another TON of grease into the housing the next time to fill up the upper cavity again and get it to come thru the top bearing. And if he doesn't see it come thru, same scenario.
Better to drill the spindle shaft part way down from the top to just above the upper bearing. Then drill another hole sideways to meet it just above the upper bearing so the grease enters above the top bearing. With no seals on the top bearing at all, and both seals ON the bottom bearing, grease passes through the upper, and begins to enter the housing but it won't fill the housing. You have to pack the housing full befor reassembly. Once assembled only pump enough grease to see it come out the top of the upper bearing. STOP. Since you packed the housing, as the grease warms and fills in above the bottom bearing it will work it's way down into the bottom bearing keeping it lubed. With both seals on the bottom bearing it will still get lubed, but it will not just fall right through it. Bonus: The zerks are very accessible if you put a 45° zerk in the center spindle.
But, really, they are so simple to replace just purchase good quality sealed bearings and pack the housing prior to reassembly. Packing the housing will give the lower bearing virtual infinite life. Then when the upper one goes bad, you only need replace it, not both. And, I never use a press, just a hammer and a drift and only on the first time. And I don't pull the spindle housing, I don't even pull the mower deck. I lift the whole machine up enough to pull the shaft out, blade attached, then hammer the bottom one out with the drift. The top one comes out easily by bumping the spindle shaft into the upper bearing. It will come right out. ben/ michigan
i have watched countless spindle videos .and there seems to be a coulpe diffrent camps of thought.if you take a sealed bearing apart the bearings are in a cage and the cage and bearings spin together. some say if you pack them full it couses more friction and makes them over heat.whitch makes sense.they say only use about 25 percent of capacity of the bearing take the factory grease out and use high temp good quality grease. i dont know zerk or no zerk .
I've put 60 hours on my mower since I did it and so far so good. I put 3-4 pumps of grease every 10 hours or so.
it would be nice to know what size hole you're drilling. a?
You can fill with wheel brging grease and then press brging in. Easy way to not pump all day
Good job.. I have done the same… what is the brand of your drill press vise..I like that
That's a good question. I have no idea. Got it at a garage sale.
Tried to find the blades. I got the same mower... I added the grease fittings to mine but I'd like the blades
I got them from here. lawn-mowerblades.com/kavli-lawn-mower-blades-buy-online/
How did u find the size mine is a 48 just like urs
@@sticker352 got in contact with the company and gave them the details to my machine. I guess they are made to order.
Did it help hold up?
so far so good
the spacer block the grease fitting ?
I'm not sure I understand you question?
@@mics106buildandfix so you have the lower bearing then the spacer and then then the other bearing.
@@wade8418 yes that correct.
The spacer is same diameter as innner race. Grease should fill around the spacer and fill the bearings.
There is space around them for grease to flow.
Wish you had shared the brging numbers
But Thank You ☺️
I showed the part numbers on camera.
They were just cheap Chinese bearings. Probably Scamazon.
Haha, like me you plow with yours too!
We try not to
Are your blades upside down
@@abhreeellis773 Yes, they ARE upside down!
Didn’t i see a grease fitting already in the housing
No mate there was no grease fitting. They come from the factory with sealed bearings.
The problem is that original sealed bearings are low grade with general purpose grease. Replacing the bearings with identical bearings and grease will gain nothing. Replace the bearings with better quality ones filled with high temperature high pressure rated grease. Sealed bearings with synthetic grease will last A VERY LONG TIME!!!! sealed or not replace with best bearings and grease and the problem goes away!!!!!
Your right on that. Tho any bearing regardless of quality will fail without lubrication. I like the fact that I can add grease at any time. I'm sure that the replacement bearings are high quality being a commercial setup. So far so good I've got 150 hours on them and still smooth.
Also, as I stated above, the upper bearing will NEVER see any grease. Most of the time *(after 1,000 spindle bearing replacements) no one will pump it until grease comes out the top and as soon as the spindle starts to warm up the grease it falls to the bottom one. ben/ michigan
Those blades are upside down!
No they are not. Looks wrong but it's the way they are designed.
Those blades look dangerous.
Maybe. But they are very effective at cutting long stem grass. To be honest they throw less debris then the standard type blades.
Looks like lack of maintenance majority of zero turns came with grease fittings from factory if they didn’t you shouldn’t buy it difference between cheap and quality mower
Um the Kobota isn't a cheap mower.
When a repair guy doesn't bother to clean the part he's fixing, I stop watching.
Why even comment then? Just move along.
mmm, those covers are on the bearings to keep dust and dirt out. you meesed up
I disagree. He only removed the inner seal so he could keep adding grease inside. This is a good modification. Trust me, those bearing shields don't keep anything out... they are only to sort of keep the grease in. I just rebuilt two of these units yesterday. The bearings were full of dirt and gunk.