38" deck

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Klapatta
Posts: 1352
Joined: Mon Sep 06, 2010 2:25 pm
First and Last Name: Kenneth LaPatta
Location: Rockingham VT.

38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

Yesterday my Son came home with a 38" deck and he handed it off to me.
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Now, I have wanted to try one of these on my lawn for some years now. Most all of my lawn is steeply sloped and pretty uneven too and I have speculated for a long time that a smaller deck would cut back on scalping versus using a deck that is probably too large.
This one has real good bones with even the baffle in great shape. Minor surface rust only.
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I want to put it on the new to me 128 that has been in service for several weeks now. That one has been running like a top and I'm quire pleased with the way it turned out. If one looks closely at that deck it's clear it's seen better days. It had not always been that way. When I injured my back in 2017 there was no way that I was going to remove it and store it away for Winter. And that is how fast that they will rot out if you do not keep up after them.
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Farther into things this evening I know the center spindle is going to need some attention.Also I found out why the idler pulley was rubbing on the face of the deck. Wow.
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Klapatta
Posts: 1352
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First and Last Name: Kenneth LaPatta
Location: Rockingham VT.

Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

The belt tension pulley was a fast fix but the center spindle is another matter. There is some damage to the pulley, and a lot to the spindle. I'm getting .754 on the pulley and .740 on the spindle. So it was loose for a while.
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After pricing that spindle on line I'll be borrowing a good one from another spare 42" deck.

JMotuzick
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Re: 38" deck

Post by JMotuzick »

Ken
Make that a permanent swap! Those spindles are pricey new and can’t be rebuilt, the older decks with cast iron spindles are the way to go as a direct replacement. I saw your son briefly but missed you. I hope all is well!

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chzuck
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First and Last Name: Charlie Zuck
Location: Elizabethtown, PA

Re: 38" deck

Post by chzuck »

I used a 38" CI deck for years, and now use a 42 CI deck.  They do a great job, especially in the fall with leaves.  The non-OSHA approved large opening in the front sucks in leaves instead of pushing them forward.  I think you will really like it to mow your yard!
http://www.zucksrototillers.com
There is only ONE ROTOTILLER.
147 with 48" mower deck & 42" QA snow thrower
70 with 42" mower deck, 42" blade, & Brinly 10" plow

Klapatta
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First and Last Name: Kenneth LaPatta
Location: Rockingham VT.

Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

Thank you Joe. My Wife is back home and in recovery following surgery and doing very nicely however she still need 24 hour monitoring. Sorry that I missed you guys, but first things first.
There have got to be enough parts here to make one good center spindle for the 38. Ugh.
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While one of these two step pulleys is probably just fine I have learned that they still can be had and not at a terrible price either so that's good to know.
Here is the parts doner deck, it is a 42 inch. It too was running the ST745 spindles. The sheet metal is very solid but the baffle is not too good.
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So now let me get this straight. You are saying that I can take the cast iron hubs and taper bearing spindles from the rotted deck shown mounted on my 128  and that they will be a direct bolt in to my 42" parts deck with the real solid sheet metal? If so that would be a home run if I could do that.

JMotuzick
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Re: 38" deck

Post by JMotuzick »

Yes, all the spindles from the 38/42/44/50 will interchange! In some cases you need to add or remove washers to get the blade heights correct. I recommend using the older cast iron type over the newer cast aluminum. Personally I would never rebuild a stamped steel spindle like you have pictured. I Run them until they fail then “upgrade” to a used cast iron. I have milk crates of cast iron spindles if you need a core to start with.

Klapatta
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Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

So they all do interchange, that's a huge plus! I kinda had that bolt pattern logged away in my memory bank but still was not sure.
This is my first go around with the water pump style spindles and no sir I am not all that impressed with it's design. It is obviously a cost cutting measure that was passed down by some bean counter. Still, it's probably much more sound than the very overpriced current production run aluminum body units. I read somewhere today that those were designed t break when hitting a solid object, now is that just dandy or what.
I rebuilt the cast spindles on the rusty 42" deck twenty years ago. I checked them before mounting the deck a few weeks back and they were as silky smooth as day one so yeah.
I'll be keeping you in mind should I decide to make the switch on the solid 42" but for right now I did select the best 3 from the lot of six and are going to run it that way. Let's see how it holds up. One was shot, one had a bit of play and was disqualified, the other 4 seemed pretty good. Yeah, removal and taking six of those apart gets pretty labor intensive.

Klapatta
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Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

Not pretty but I was not after pretty.
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The thing fit like a glove and it runs very smooth and quiet. I did have to adjust the front end down about 3/8".
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I could tell right away that this smaller deck will be more ideally suited for my lawn with all its turns and slopes.
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My next projects will be to make one nice, solid 42" deck. The rusty one is running the cast spindles so it will be a keeper.
I did some research on blade lengths for a 38 deck, they are 19.9 and 10.19 inches. I have a set of nice sharpened blades for a 42" deck however the corners on them are rounded rather badly. I am going to lay out scribe lines on them and trim them down with a chop saw. That will make the corner edges like new again and it will save me from buying new blades. Those are quite expensive.
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JMotuzick
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Re: 38" deck

Post by JMotuzick »

Ken
Looking good!
I’ve done the same with blades, new sure to balance them after you trim them down, they can be out if you don’t cut perfect!

Klapatta
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Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

I'm following Joe's advise and are transfering the cast spindle assemblies over to the 42" deck shell in far better condition. They are very smooth and tight even after twenty years since rebuild. Grease them often and they last a real long time.
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I had looked into buying parts to build back up the second deck and that totaled well over $200. At the very least I'd need 1 new water pump type spindle and center double pulley. Oh yeah, the trailing wheels are gone too, I swiped them. And it would all be going into a deck that is cracked and rusted out so that simply makes no sense. I went on the hunt yesterday looking for another parts deck and came home empty so that is now at a dead end. This adding to the fact that I just don't need it. So, that one is parts now, that said it served me well for twenty years.
I am still going have to to fab up the guide for inside the deck, unless I can repair what remains there.
Question to the group, has anyone tried POR15 as a sealant inside the deck?
I think that is worth a try but would like to hear input about it.

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dag1450
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Re: 38" deck

Post by dag1450 »

Nice job on the rebuild Ken. You peaked my interest when you said you are going to cut your mower blades to true them up. LOL. any picures of that? I never heard of that one before. I need new 60 inch blades pretty bad LOL. 
 No i have never POR15 a deck but it sounds very good at first....but im a skeptic so these are just some random thoughts that popped into my head when i read that. I kinda see that coating like an under coating sinario on a car frame. if a rock chips the coating to bare metal, that compromised spot will grow with rust and moisture under the surrounding coating. Then i feel that is worse than an untreated area that can dry out. Here is another situation that i was a recipient of: I find a nice 44 inch deck, I think cub made replacements for some decks at somepoint. This thing was mint...or so i thought. I get it home and started picking at some of the blemishes, i proceeded to pull off sheets of yellow powder coat on the top and bottom. Same thing, moisture got in at a small blemish and just ran under the surface! At that point i robbed all the parts and found another shell because of the rust holes under what was good yellow surface.
Im sure someone has done this...maybe goggle it.LOL
127, 1650, 1572, 1872, 2072 . A mower, blower and blade for each.

Klapatta
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Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

Here's the 38" deck with the trimmed down 42" blades on it. I'll test it out this Afternoon. Anything will beat the rounded off, fragmenting things that were on there, at the time it was all I had.
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Even with a very good disc grinder that was very labor intensive.
I don't know if I'd want to do that again.
The 42" deck turned out very solid but I'll still need to fab up a new baffle.
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I'd like to find a way to preserve the underside and the POR15 may be the answer but it would be nice to hear from someone here that has done it first. Think that I have read elsewhere that it works very well. I have used the graphite paint before and it seems to me that it gets prone to saturation at some point.

Klapatta
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Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

Just for giggles. Here are the small blades from the 42" deck
I sharpened them 10 years ago. Or was it 20?
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Here are the small blades from the 38" deck. Check out the fracturing.
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JMotuzick
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Re: 38" deck

Post by JMotuzick »

Ken
If you want parts, Spindles etc let me
Know I can flat rate them up. Nice job on the blades. I prefer to use the chop saw then sharpen and balance.

Klapatta
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Re: 38" deck

Post by Klapatta »

Yes, a carbide blade chop saw would have made fast work of that, alas I no longer have free reign amongst a 300 person machine shop so improvision becomes the mother of invention. The disc grinder did just fine. The thing there I think was to be sure that the center hole was in fact on center. I took my overall stated length and divided  by 2. From there I subtracted one half the diameter of the hole (.375).
That gave me my layout line dim. I shoved a 3/4" I dowel pin to bank my scale off of and then laid down my scribe line as close as I could get it.
No balance was necessary and wow what an improvement in my cut.
I got curious some more about how to do the deck internal refinish. I went over to YouTube and typed in mower deck rust protection. Well, about a hundred threads turned up. No two alike, like they say everyone's got one. :roll: Anyway it's something to think about. There were a couple there that I'm leaning toward. One common point that seemed to be repeating itself was that the POR15 process does not seem to make for the best approach here.
I still need to get that baffle fabbed up and welded in there first, and sheet metal is not my favorite of subjects. I did make one up a real long time ago. As I recall, a 42 gallon barrel and a 5 gallon pail were my jigs of choice. A cardboard template shoved inside the deck and laid out using the blades as an axial marking point would be a good first step I think too.
Damn, no more leisurely trips over to the stock rack and grabbing whatever the hell I want anymore either. :cry:

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