My JD316 has been fairly reliable, with a few quirks for it's age, like the fuel line inside the tank rotting away, making me think it needed a new fuel pump (it didn't), and the intake manifold causing the misfire (bought a used intake manifold to split and reseal, so I can run it with partial choke in the meanwhile).
I've been preparing to dethatch and aerate my yard, as I cut down ~ 1/2 acre of trees a few years back, and this was the year to try to 'make it look like a lawn.' ~2 weeks back, at the end of cutting the 'crap grass,' I heard a rattle and squeak, and the center blade dropped out the bottom of the mower.
As I was done mowing, and had a new pair of gator blades, I didn't think too much of it other than checking the bolt, which looked reasonably OK; I figured it had simply vibrated out over time, and reminded me that this winter needed to finally be time to get to the annoying things I've been meaning to fix/full maintenance, etc.
Today, in *dire* need of mowing before I aerate and seed, I couldn't locate the new gator blades ( :-/ ), so figured screw it, I'll replace the old blade to do a final cut, will dethatch, sweep, aerate, then seed, fertilize, and find and install the gators later. Drove the front of the tractor up on ramps, and used a jack to lift up the deck a bit. The top 1/4-3/8" of the bolt that fell out is bare with no threads, which seemed odd, but possibly machined that way as it's clean. I tried to dry thread it back in, without the blade, and it felt binding a bit, so did a quick chase with a 7/16-14 tap to just clean up the threads, very little material removed, seemed ok.
Put the blade in, hand threaded the bolt, then as I started to tighten it with ~1/2" of thread still showing, the entire bolt shifted upwards and downwards, basically acting like there was nothing 'biting' in the threads. This made my day - I've got a CD service manual, the wife assures me is...somewhere, but not anywhere I can find. I haven't taken the deck off (never have as of yet), so without a diagram I'm stuck guessing as to if the top shaft on the top of the deck with the giant nut over the pulley is actually solid down to the bottom, if only the top of the blade bolt is intended to engage, if I should consider tapping out to a 1/2" high grade bolt for the center blade, or ???
Frustrated, I decided I was going to look everywhere for my service manual and diagrams, but cut the grass with multiple passes (think about a 50" deck, roughly 3 16" blades, but xxxxxx < nothing > xxxxxx and having to overlap each pass - yeah, nice, effective cut path of 24"
But, it gets better. Remove the jack, drop the tractor off the ramps, start her up, engage the pto, and...blades stop spinning after a second. Nice. Jump off, and the blade belt is *massively* loose, like a foot or more of slack. I see the spring tensioner on the side, but...no pulley on it. I locate the pulley, and see it's bearings are completely seized, and the nut is nowhere to be found. So, no cutting even baby swaths in the grass at the moment, and I need to travel for work shortly, so either get it working somehow this week or likely don't cut/aerate/seed this year, or at least until fall for winter seed, which isn't really what's needed.
It would be hysterical, as well as possibly deserved, as I've always done all maintenance on all vehicles myself, including a former highly modified weekend track car, but have been admittedly lax on tractor maintenance...if not for the timing.
Can anyone shed some light on what may have happened to the center shaft, and how that goes together? I find it unlikely it's just the top 1/2" of the bolt holding the blade on, but may be wrong. Should I try to tap it out one size up, or if not, what parts are really needed, and are they readily available at all?
Likewise, any diagram, drawing, pic, part numbers on the upper deck idler pulley would be helpful. I'm thinking the minimum to do there is likely a bearing (can these be pressed out in a vice + sockets, and freeze the replacement bearing, heat the pulley, or really need a full press?), figure out any parts missing, likely just a top washer and nut, and throw it together, and replace all of the deck bearings this winter.
Any help/advice/laughs?
I've been preparing to dethatch and aerate my yard, as I cut down ~ 1/2 acre of trees a few years back, and this was the year to try to 'make it look like a lawn.' ~2 weeks back, at the end of cutting the 'crap grass,' I heard a rattle and squeak, and the center blade dropped out the bottom of the mower.
As I was done mowing, and had a new pair of gator blades, I didn't think too much of it other than checking the bolt, which looked reasonably OK; I figured it had simply vibrated out over time, and reminded me that this winter needed to finally be time to get to the annoying things I've been meaning to fix/full maintenance, etc.
Today, in *dire* need of mowing before I aerate and seed, I couldn't locate the new gator blades ( :-/ ), so figured screw it, I'll replace the old blade to do a final cut, will dethatch, sweep, aerate, then seed, fertilize, and find and install the gators later. Drove the front of the tractor up on ramps, and used a jack to lift up the deck a bit. The top 1/4-3/8" of the bolt that fell out is bare with no threads, which seemed odd, but possibly machined that way as it's clean. I tried to dry thread it back in, without the blade, and it felt binding a bit, so did a quick chase with a 7/16-14 tap to just clean up the threads, very little material removed, seemed ok.
Put the blade in, hand threaded the bolt, then as I started to tighten it with ~1/2" of thread still showing, the entire bolt shifted upwards and downwards, basically acting like there was nothing 'biting' in the threads. This made my day - I've got a CD service manual, the wife assures me is...somewhere, but not anywhere I can find. I haven't taken the deck off (never have as of yet), so without a diagram I'm stuck guessing as to if the top shaft on the top of the deck with the giant nut over the pulley is actually solid down to the bottom, if only the top of the blade bolt is intended to engage, if I should consider tapping out to a 1/2" high grade bolt for the center blade, or ???
Frustrated, I decided I was going to look everywhere for my service manual and diagrams, but cut the grass with multiple passes (think about a 50" deck, roughly 3 16" blades, but xxxxxx < nothing > xxxxxx and having to overlap each pass - yeah, nice, effective cut path of 24"
But, it gets better. Remove the jack, drop the tractor off the ramps, start her up, engage the pto, and...blades stop spinning after a second. Nice. Jump off, and the blade belt is *massively* loose, like a foot or more of slack. I see the spring tensioner on the side, but...no pulley on it. I locate the pulley, and see it's bearings are completely seized, and the nut is nowhere to be found. So, no cutting even baby swaths in the grass at the moment, and I need to travel for work shortly, so either get it working somehow this week or likely don't cut/aerate/seed this year, or at least until fall for winter seed, which isn't really what's needed.
It would be hysterical, as well as possibly deserved, as I've always done all maintenance on all vehicles myself, including a former highly modified weekend track car, but have been admittedly lax on tractor maintenance...if not for the timing.
Can anyone shed some light on what may have happened to the center shaft, and how that goes together? I find it unlikely it's just the top 1/2" of the bolt holding the blade on, but may be wrong. Should I try to tap it out one size up, or if not, what parts are really needed, and are they readily available at all?
Likewise, any diagram, drawing, pic, part numbers on the upper deck idler pulley would be helpful. I'm thinking the minimum to do there is likely a bearing (can these be pressed out in a vice + sockets, and freeze the replacement bearing, heat the pulley, or really need a full press?), figure out any parts missing, likely just a top washer and nut, and throw it together, and replace all of the deck bearings this winter.
Any help/advice/laughs?
