RCK60-24B bearing failure ??

[robertm]

I put 5-6 pumps in each zerk about every ten (10) hours of mowing, and I still get grease "stripes" under the deck spindle covers from the spindle spinning the grease everywhere. To me, that's a sign of overgreasing... and that's not anywhere near 40 pumps. You may recall my post about two years ago regarding "hard zerks" on my 60"MMM. I could bearley pum one (1) pump in each zerk when new. After using the deck about 10 hours, the problem went away. I never, by the way. get grease in the cups under the deck, but I sure do elsewhere. My dealer said 4-5 pumps every 10 hours. Sure hope it does not catch up with me.

 

[Mahlon]

</font><font color="blueclass=small">( Now that I've read all of this, I wanna check the spindles on my RCK54-22BX. Strongly suspect that there's a high degree of commonality on these mower decks, esp. where the spindles are concerned.

I squirted a LOT of grease into mine yesterday & didn't see any come out of the spindle tops, so I'm worried.)</font>

OK, shot some more grease (Valvoline Synthetic) into my spindles yesterday:

Phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot

Nothing.

Phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot

STILL nothing!

Phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoot phoo SPUURRTTT!!!

OK, grease FINALLY came out of the hole in the spindle cup.

Did the same for the other two spindles, then fired 'er up. After all of that, only a little bit of excess grease spun out from under the pulleys, so I figure I finally got the spindles full. Man, that's a lot of grease, though!

OH! Noticed that the grease that came out was that nasty worthless green-colored crap that the Japanese seem to use on everything that moves. Best to purge all of that out!

regards,

Mahlon

 

[Burk]

Well I quess I get to take the deck off Saturday morning and check everything. I talked to my dealer and they didn't know anything about this and they said the spindles were greased from the factory. Thanks for the headsup. I really don't need a major failure, even if it is under warranty.

 

[Junkman]

I assume that Kubota has these manufactured under contract and that it is an outside supplier. The manufacturer will save a lot of money if they don't fill the spindles with grease. Just figure out how many decks they build and how much grease is involved in filling them. My bet is that they put enough in to lube the bearings upon assembly, but don't fill the cavities for future lubrication...... The dealers assume that they are filled at the factory and don't put any more in. We assume that the dealer set the machine up properly and checked all grease fittings and oil levels. The error is compounded until the bearing fails and that can take a couple of years. When I first posted that I put 40 pumps of grease into the spindle, almost everyone to post, thought that I made a typo.... More people will have to give us updates on their decks before we can make a final determination as to the status upon delivery. Possibly a new owner can help us determine this accurately by greasing the deck before it is put into use. How much he will have to pump will be interesting to learn....

 

[bxbuster]

ok, all this talk made me put the grease gun to work. The count on mine was in the high 30's on the two outer spindles and the middle one was about 10. I didn't remove anything just kept pumping the handle until grease came out the small hole in the cup. My mower deck has kind of growled at lower rpm's since day one. I've read other posts that there decks are silent. I figured it was just a noisy designed gearbox until reading other posts. Are others silent as stated or is the growling noise at low speed normal?

 

[JWE]

I just checked mine. I took the blades off and there was no sign of grease in the grease cover and no grease oozing from the spindles, top or bottom. My left took 36 pumps before it came out the bottom. The middle one took 43 pumps and it came out the top and not the bottom. The right took 27 pumps and came out the bottom. In all cases, the grease was green that was pushed out (my grease is almost clear). I am sure that my deck was never greased properly at the factory or at the dealer. I took before and after pictures of every spindle. Attached is a picture of the right spindle.

I also know now that you must remove the deck to grease it properly. There is no way to tell if you have pumped enough grease unless you take the blades and dust cover off.

John

 

[JWE]

Ops... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif I thought that I had merged the before and after shots. Here is the after picture.

John

 

[JWE]

Another ops!.. This evening I went to my garage to put the blades back on my mower and discovered that grease was oozing from the bottom of the middle spindle and not out of the top. I must of seen grease that came out of the top of the tension pully an thought it was the middle spindle. I felt under the gear box and there was no grease there.

John

 

[Henro]

I have more or less concluded that if the decks are designed for grease to push through the seals anyway, that new users should pump A LOT of grease in to begin with...

So Junkman you did good...

I guess I did OK by pumping in maybe 10 pumps in each time I had the deck off...but still when I got interested and took the blades off as well as the spindle covers, it STILL toll almost 10 more pumps per spindle to see grease (except for the center spindle).

It sure looks to me like the spindle covers would hold a lot of grease though...maybe fifty pumps of my grease gun...so I would keep that in mind if I were trying to judge what was going on without taking the blades and spindle covers off...

 

[Junkman]

Spoke to Kubota Representative today about this. He informed me that there is enough grease installed at the point of assembly to keep the bearings "sanitary" for shipping and the selling dealers are supposed to fill the spindles with grease as part of the pre delivery set up procedure. Also noted that the dealers might be under the impression that this is done at the point of manufacturing and that is where the breakdown of communications was. He also informed me that there would be a bulletin going out if they find that this is commonplace. I informed him about TBN and he said that they were fully aware of it and often read the comments. They don't respond because they (Kubota) feels that this is a consumer driven forum and that it isn't their place to be involved. To sum it up, they do have their fingers on the pulse of the Kubota forums, but do it in stealth mode. I spent over an hour on the phone discussing varied topics of the BX tractor with him. Very knowledgeable person that had almost all of the facts at his finger tips and said that he would get back to me on the ones that he wasn't familiar with. I feel better about Kubota today than any other time since I purchased my tractor. They really are trying to make a quality product and want to know about problems when they arise. Contrary to my previous opinion and that of others, they don't have their heads in the sand. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif