Installing 60" mmm, badly in need of help-

[teeravis1]

Guys I have been trying to get my new 60" mmm put together and installed since saturday morning. I didn't feel the book was very good, I spent about 12 hrs on it saturday, 2 hrs on it yesterday and am not done yet. Anyway I did get it put together now and I do have it installed on the tractor, so hear are the things I need help with.


First one is a goofy one:

1) The stop bolt for the spring on the grass chute you bolt down thru the chute and the deck - is it necessary to install because the holes on the deck and the chute don't line up. Also they gave me a 30 mm not a 25 mm bolt like called out in the book. Don't know if it matters, I guess the real question here is can I not put that bolt in since it doesn't line up. I don't understand its purpose anyway to be honest with you.

The more important questions:

2) The the way my front link sits in the front bracket of the mower deck I'm not sure it is correct. I have measured and adjusted both sides of the front link to be the same length as the book says. The book says to adjust them to 19" 11/16", I got them adjusted to 19" 9/16" because if I made them any longer they wouldn't fit to lock in when you close the handle thing on the front. Anyway when I have the gront link installed and the deck is all the way down, or up as high as I can put it the welded pins on the front link sit unevenly in the bracket. There is more space between the end of the groove in the bracket and the welded pin on one side than the other. Is this normal?

3) I have a B3030HSDC, do I have to remove the step? If I would of listened to the book and went up into the tractor and lifted the mower deck all the way up like it says I would have smashed my step right down into one of the belt covers on top of the deck. So do I have to remove the step, or am I suppose to adjust the connecting rod lengths to be longer so I can raise it up all the way and then adjust the distance between the tractor frame and the mid and rear stops on the deck ? Right now I have the connecting rods adjusted to what the book says.

4) There is a spot in the book where it says to level your 3 point hitch arms and set your stop for the lever at that spot so you can't put your 3 point any lower. My question is ...is that the mowing position? or are you suppose to mow with the deck all the way down? Is the center rear gauge dual wheel suppose to be on the ground or off the ground when you mow?

Any and all help would be appreciated, I was hoping to be mowing by saturday, not quite working out

Thanks everyone, I reallly appreciate being able to get out on the net and have some place to ask questions and get answers when you are really in need of them - Thanks Again.

 

[aczlan]

1) The stop bolt for the spring on the grass chute you bolt down thru the chute and the deck - is it necessary to install because the holes on the deck and the chute don't line up.

dunno, I would guess that the bolt dosent do much...

2) The the way my front link sits in the front bracket of the mower deck I'm not sure it is correct.

if it is like my FIL's B7500 (looks like it is) the shiny pin in your pics (#5 in my picture below) should be where the red pin (#7 in my picture) is. it looks like the slot should fit between the sides of the piece that the shiny pin fits through and the red pin should be at the back of the slot
here is a rough illustration, the blue lines are for the red pin (#7) and the white ones are for the shiny (#5) pin

3) I have a B3030HSDC, do I have to remove the step?

dunno.

4) There is a spot in the book where it says to level your 3 point hitch arms and set your stop for the lever at that spot so you can't put your 3 point any lower.

as I understand you have a lever that slides up and down as opposed to a hyd remote type type lever, I think this step should be lower your 3 pt arms till the brackets for the deck are loose, then put your stop in there so that you dont drag your 3pt arms in the ground

My question is ...is that the mowing position? or are you suppose to mow with the deck all the way down? Is the center rear gauge dual wheel suppose to be on the ground or off the ground when you mow?

yes (at least for a B7500), you set mowing height with the dual gauge wheel and the front casters, they should be on the ground when doing normal mowing.

HTH

Aaron Z

 

[teeravis1]

Thanks Aaron -

I did have the front link set into the bracket wrong, not sure how I didn't see that from looking in the book. Probably cause I was already 10 hrs into it and it was late . Not thinking clearly by then I guess. Now the new dilema, My front link does not line up straight with the lift part on the front of the tractor . Am I suppose to just horse it over and see if I can pull it in to place, or am I suppose to adjust something to shift the deck?

Thanks for all the help.

 

[aczlan]

My front link does not line up straight with the lift part on the front of the tractor . Am I suppose to just horse it over and see if I can pull it in to place, or am I suppose to adjust something to shift the deck?
.

are both back pins locked in? if they are I would make certian they are straight and then check the two "forks" (#5 goes through them) to make certian they are set the same, if that is all good you can A). horse it over or B). adjust the "forks" so that the piece fits as it should.


if it wont muscle over relatively easily, I would guess that something is out of wack in the linkage somewhere... should be fairly obvoius if you compare and see what is ahead/behind, all links should be even front to back on both sides.


Aaron Z

 

[teeravis1]

Thanks for the help Aaron -

Re-adjusting the front link is what I had ended up doing, I feel better doing it that way then having strain on something, even if it wasn't a lot of strain. However, now the lengths of each fork are different from each other and both are different from what the manual states. I figure that must be OK otherwise they wouldn't make them adjustable I guess. I also had to adjust the connecting links to be different than what the book states and they are also adjusted different from each other, again I guess thats why they make them adjustable. Hope that is the correct assumption in both cases.

I did have to take my step off in order to get the stops adjusted and be able to use the lock pins for the loader and 3 point use for when the mower is on. I think I have everything installed and adjusted correctly now.

I have to talk w/ my dealer tomorrow though because one of the bushings in one of the rear links had large burr (piece that wasn't machined all the way off) and I mangled up both of my stay pins pretty bad. Got the pin stuck in the rear link and had to fight to get it out. I ended up filing on both of the stay pins and on both the rear links bushings. I did get the pins to fit fairly smoothly, but I think they should replace those parts since the causing factor was the machining wasn't finished on one of the bushings. That cost me a lot of time saturday dicking with that. Hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow so I can mow the lawn and try it out. The lawn needs a mowing badly!

Thanks again.

 

[Lindy]

Good job getting that thing installed. Just curious -- did you want to install it yourself just to save some money, or was it more the satisfaction of doing it yourself? Any idea what the dealer would've charged to do it? Just curious, since I recently traded my 60" deck back to the dealer for a 72" inch deck, and I had to put out quite a bit more cash due to the labor involved in removing the old deck and attaching the new deck (in addition to the fact that MSRP on the 72" deck is ~$700 more than the 60" deck, and my 60" deck had been used a few times).

I also have a B3030 (no cab). I could've taken a pic or two to help you compare setups if I still had the 60" deck. The new 72" deck is nice, but it doesn't seem to be quite as "user friendly" as the 60" deck was. Pinning the deck up is harder. That would be my main complaint. The 60" deck is set up nice for that -- easy to do, and room to move your hands around in there. The 72" deck is easier to adjust the mowing height on, though. All you have to do is adjust the settings on the 4 wheels. That's it. There's no small anti-scalp wheels in the mid-back of the deck to adjust. And the rear right hand side of the 72" deck has a regular wheel. The 60" deck has a roller that needs to be unbolted and reattached to achieve some of the various mowing heights.

All in all, I think the 60" deck is designed for better integration into the tractor than the 72" deck. It's a bit more "user friendly". But I really like the speed I gain with the 72" deck.

Performance wise, they're about the same as far as I can tell. The 60" deck leaves more roller marks in the grass than the 72" deck, which leaves only 2 deck wheel trails. The 60" deck left more trails from the anti-scalp wheels and rollers.

 

[teeravis1]

Good job getting that thing installed. Just curious -- did you want to install it yourself just to save some money, or was it more the satisfaction of doing it yourself? Any idea what the dealer would've charged to do it? Just curious, since I recently traded my 60" deck back to the dealer for a 72" inch deck, and I had to put out quite a bit more cash due to the labor involved in removing the old deck and attaching the new deck (in addition to the fact that MSRP on the 72" deck is ~$700 more than the 60" deck, and my 60" deck had been used a few times).

I also have a B3030 (no cab). I could've taken a pic or two to help you compare setups if I still had the 60" deck. The new 72" deck is nice, but it doesn't seem to be quite as "user friendly" as the 60" deck was. Pinning the deck up is harder. That would be my main complaint. The 60" deck is set up nice for that -- easy to do, and room to move your hands around in there. The 72" deck is easier to adjust the mowing height on, though. All you have to do is adjust the settings on the 4 wheels. That's it. There's no small anti-scalp wheels in the mid-back of the deck to adjust. And the rear right hand side of the 72" deck has a regular wheel. The 60" deck has a roller that needs to be unbolted and reattached to achieve some of the various mowing heights.

All in all, I think the 60" deck is designed for better integration into the tractor than the 72" deck. It's a bit more "user friendly". But I really like the speed I gain with the 72" deck.

Performance wise, they're about the same as far as I can tell. The 60" deck leaves more roller marks in the grass than the 72" deck, which leaves only 2 deck wheel trails. The 60" deck left more trails from the anti-scalp wheels and rollers.

Hey Lindy,
Installing it myself had nothing to do with the satisfaction of doing it. My dealer is 1hr and 45 min away, so I figured instead of borrowing a trailer (I don't have one) and having to haul the tractor there, then wait to get it installed and then go back and get it, between the few hundred I was saving on the dealer to install it, plus the gas money to go back and forth twice, plus the time delay if they did it, I thought I would go and pick it up saturday morning throw it on in a few hours and be mowing saturday afternoon................was I ever wrong . To be honest I wish I would of just paid the extra 3 to 4 hundred and had them do it. By no means am I a mechanic, but I do consider myself to be fairly mechanically inclined. When I picked it up I asked one of the dealer mechanics if it was hard to install and if there was any tricks to doing it and if the book was good. He said it wasn't too bad to install and that the book was very good and there were really no tricks to it. I beg to differ, mostly on the book part, I don't think the manual was laid out very well, there is a lot of room for improvement. It took me probably15 hrs to get it done. I spent all saturday on it and some of today, needless to say my lawn is not mowed. In all honesty I think the biggest problem was I had never seen one on a tractor and had no clue whatsoever how it was suppose to look, or work, or where any parts belonged or anything, I was strictly going off the book only, which is probably also why I thought the book wasn't good - I couldn't recollect back to seeing one or even looking at one installed on a tractor when trying to decipher thru the book. I will say I bet I could do it now in under 3 hrs after struggling thru it the first time. I am hoping to mow tomorrow after work and give it a try if the grass is dry, would have tried it today but it rained a lot today. Anyway to answer your question I did myself to save money and time, however, if time is money I failed miserably on both accounts

 

[teeravis1]

Called my dealer today about getting my stay pins and rear links replaced, then got into the conversation of how I had to adjust my front link and connecting rods unequally from left side to right side and they told me that wasn't right and that something had to be wrong. I emailed them some pics of how I had it set up and talked to him on the phone about it and his thought is my mower isn't centered correctly under the mower. They thought I should flip a bracket around to shift the deck over, but that won't work because the rear links which determine where the deck sits left to right have no play in them. He told me to do this 10 min before they closed and then to call them in the morning. I tried to call him back at closing time (10 min later) when I realized it wouldn't work and no one picked up. I'm quite disappointed that they wouldn't hang around an extra half an hour and try to help me out over the phone, or even an extra 15 min. Seeing as they are 95 miles away and I don't have a trailer I am in a crappy spot. I asked them about sending a mechanic out the the house but he said it would cost around $500 - so that idea went out the window. Now I have to site here and wait till morning and another day goes by with my lawn not getting mowed. I'm so frustrated that I am ready to drop the deck off on their door step get my money back and go buy a john deere rider. I'm thinking I may have to take a day off from work tomorrow now to stay home and work with them over the phone before I go to the last resort and rent a trailer and haul the junk up to them to try to get working. Just venting off frustration - thanks for listening guys.

 

[teeravis1]

Was working out near my dealer stopped talked to them, took half day off work and came home to work on the mower......and finally it is finished. I even mowed with it this evening, it mowed pretty good, so now I am feeling much better, but it was still a mess to go through. I'll post some pics this evening. Thought I should leave this thread on a good note rather than the bad one I left above. The dealer is also going to get me new stay pins since I had file mine up, they said not to worry about the bushings I had to file on.