BX Ww

[Henro]

Hi,

SORRY I SOMEHOW POSTED THIS BEFORE I WAS READY...and can not edit the title...

Question refers to a bx2200 mower deck...

Ten or more years ago there were some posts here about an issue with some of the Bx mower decks coming from the factory under greased, and therefore failures resulting from lack of grease in the spindles.

Right or wrong, I came to believe proper greasing involved putting in as much grease as necessary until grease came out of the hole on the cover between the blade and the spindle end. And then to put ten pumps of grease in each spindle every ten hours or so of operation.

My mower has continued to operate perfectly. I have no issues. About a thousand hours or more on it.

Got curious today and checked the manual for the mower. It shows the grease points but does not say anything about frequency or amount of grease to use.

So I am wondering if what I have been doing is correct, or if I blew the seals out of the lower bearing.

I am not going to change what I have been doing, but do wonder what the recommended procedure actually is...

Anyone know? Is it somewhere in the manual and did I miss it? Would not be the first time....

 

[Code54]

I always greased it until a little would come out. Seems to be working as I have no issues so far. If you have over a 1000hrs on your mower deck I would call it all good. Spindles are a wear item on a mower so with your usage I figure you are doing just fine - no matter what the experts say....

 

[diesel85]

My spindles wore out about ~400 hours mower usage.

To me, that is great.

 

[RjCorazza]

I've read here about filling the spindles with large amounts of grease. I have always given them 3 pumps or so once per week, or about 10 hours use. I have 1700h on one ZD mower, and 1200h on the other without any spindle failures.

 

[Henro]

So maybe we are on to something?

I will continue doing what I have been doing.

But I wonder why kubota does not give a recommendation on how frequently to grease and how much...

 

[rick480]

Holy cow, you guys grease the heck out of them. I grease them in the spring and I’m good for the summer. 500 hours and no problems.

 

[skipperbrown]

I try to remember to give each zerk I can reach one light squirt before each time I mow. I mow for about 1 1/2 hrs each time. i'm at 850 hrs w/o issues. I find hardly any grease in the spindle cups under the deck when I pull the blades for sharpening (once a yr).

 

[Volfandt]

In the spring before the 1st mow, part of my BX23 mower prep is to fill the spindles full of grease until it starts to come out of the hole(s) in the cup. That way I know they're full of grease. I then hit them with grease every 4th or 5th mow which avg's around every 10 hrs or so. I mow 2 acres weekly and the other 2 acres bi-weekly.
I use a Lincoln air grease gun and give 'em a good long blast, to a count of 5. Sometimes I see alittle grease on the floor under the spindles afterwards but most times I don't. It's an 04 model BX23 and 60" MMM with alittle over 1k hrs on it. Same spindles and original belt. Works for me.

 

[captronr]

Kinda funny: This morning I watched a video where a guy showed that most mowing decks (sears, huskvarna, mtd, etc) have grease zerks on the spindles, but if you take the spindles out, you will see that both the upper and lower bearings are SEALED, so no matter how much grease you pump into the void, none gets to the bearings! His solution was to cut the seal off the lower side of the upper bearing and the upper side of the lower bearing.

I only mow about 30 hrs per year with my 54"mmm, so greasing in the spring seems enough.

I am contemplating building a water fixture that I can drive over to flush the mowing deck after use.
Ron

 

[milkman]

When I bought my ZD21 in '09, it had the blade bolts stripped in both outside spindles. I ordered replacements along with new bearings, the bearings are not sealed. I would think that the deck on the bx2200 has the same spindle bearings. I don't remember, but I presume that there is a seal in the bottom of the spindle, might blow that out with too much grease.