cub 60" deck anomoly

   / cub 60" deck anomoly #1  

rbig

Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2004
Messages
39
Just had an experience with the 60" deck on my Cub 3205, and want to pass it along in case it might be of help to other users.

I have no idea if there are several 60" Cub garden tractor decks, or just the one my tractor has. I also don't know if the 54" is just a slightly smaller 60", or if there are substantial differences.

I work on a bunch of garden tractors as a volunteer at my church, American Legion, and Elks Lodge, taking care of their lawn eqpt. I also have a JD 400 and Roper RT-13 I restored, and a JD RX-75 rear engine rider.

I've done my share of struggling with cranky decks and replacing broken v belts.

I ran into something on this Cub I just bought that is interesting. The deck was cutting unevenly, on a side-to-side basis. It was visibly cocked to where the left deck side was lower than the right side.

Where my adventure started was in glibly deciding to "throw a wrench on it and get it level, again". Sounds good and looks good on paper. First problem was in finding a way to get to the doggone vertical lift rod adjustment (the adjustment is a locknut on the bottom of the lift rod). Turns out this thing is almost totally hidden and inaccessible with the deck full up. Once a friendly 3205 owner told me this, I dropped the deck down, and was then able to get to the nut to either tighten or loosen it.

Turns out I ran the darned nut all the way up on the rod, and still didn't have enough bite to get the deck up on an even keel. What to do.

I carefully inspected everything, and found nothing bent, broken, or obviously mis-installed. So, I got a thick stack of 10 washers and put on the vertical lift rod, above the nut. Then, I was finally able to get the thing up even.

My next problem was in setting the rear rollers. The book says set the front casters to your cutting height of choice (mine is 3"). So I did. Then, it turns out the rear rollers were way high. In this case, the book says use the adjustment knob over on the left rear deck corner to reset the rear roller height.

Turns out my adjustment knob was stuck. I hosed it down with WD-40 all the way across, but it was still stuck. I found a way to pull the black plastic knob back away from the detent enough to get a wrench onto the flat spots on the adjuster shaft. Using the small wrench and a cheater, I was then able to get everything freed up enough to do the adjustment of the rear rollers as they should be adjusted, without undue effort.

Well, my deck is now just slightly raked down in front (as they should be), is level from side-to-side, and is sitting nicely on the wheels and rollers at 3" cutting height. It mows great.

What bothers me still is that I had to put the stack of washers in there to get the thing to come into plumb. Shouldn't have had to do that. Normally, that means something else is out of whack, somewhere. I'm going to leave it awhile and observe. It mows great, so far. And, I'm sure if I took the washer stack out I wouldn't be able to level the deck.

Hope all this helps someone.
 
 
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