Ford 971 flail replacement rotor bearings... greasable or ungreasable?

Fallon · Oct 5, 2016

Old beatup ford 917 22-185 flail mower. It looks like there are 2 options to replace the blown up rotor bearing according to Messicks & Flailmaster, expensive greasable ones, or cheaper ungreasable ones. Planning on replacing them as a pair even thought the non-driven end of the rotor hasn't blown on me yet. When the bearing blew, it took out a $20 mounting plate too.

New Holland (22-184) - FORD 917 SERIES FLAIL MOWER 74" (3/73-12/76) Parts Diagrams
664073R92 "W/O Lube Holes" $26.13
52443 (presumable with lube holes) $40.88

Flailmaster...
241565G (G stands for greasable) --$79.96
241565---$31.78

It's an old beatup machine, so dumping a lot of cash into it isn't smart. I bought the whole flail for $100 & have maybe $500 into it including a PTO shaft I can reuse elsewhere. I put grease in the gearbox rather than spend almost $100 for new seals.

What would you do? cheap bearing with no lube holes or spendy one with em?

RickB · Oct 5, 2016

Depends on whether you know how to use a grease gun and plan on keeping the mower for more than a couple years. If yes to both, go with relube style.

kimaran · Oct 7, 2016

I'm about to purchase a 917 any suggestions on type of blade I need to clear youpon and heavy brush
Also what's a fair price

Fallon · Oct 7, 2016

kimaran said:
I'm about to purchase a 917 any suggestions on type of blade I need to clear youpon and heavy brush
Also what's a fair price

They are greal mowers & I love mine, but from what I can see might not be ideal for heavy brush. The duck foot hammers will do better in brush than the side slicers because of their extra mass. I'm looking at upgrading my tractor & will probably sell my 60" light weight rotary with it. Having a hard time justifying replacing it with a heavy flail vs a cheaper medium duty rotary.

I've used mine in light brush a bit with few problems. The bearing blew in light brush, but it's hard to say that was the cause of the failure on what could possibly be 30 year old bearings.

Not sure how a new Carconi flail compares to a 917, similar I guess without having seen a Carconi. At any rate a new Carconi is about $2k. In pretty good shape I'd have a hard time paying over $1k for a 917, depending on width.

Check out the several hundred page let's talk flail mower thread in the attachments forum. Will take a longtime to read, but it's the best flail resource on the Internet.

TractorTech · Oct 8, 2016

I've run my 917H in heavy 'wire or buffalo grass' as well as some sage brush for 20 years now. I run the non-greaseable bearings with pretty equivalent results to the greaseable. The problem with the greaseable I've experienced is the flangette mount it sits in. 70% of the grease never gets to the bearing and the flangettes allow dirt to enter the grease area between the flangette and bearing hole.

Fallon · Oct 8, 2016

TractorTech said:
I've run my 917H in heavy 'wire or buffalo grass' as well as some sage brush for 20 years now. I run the non-greaseable bearings with pretty equivalent results to the greaseable. The problem with the greaseable I've experienced is the flangette mount it sits in. 70% of the grease never gets to the bearing and the flangettes allow dirt to enter the grease area between the flangette and bearing hole.

Thanks. Called up Messick's yesterday & talked to a parts guy there. He opened up the packages for the 2 styles they had & both were sealed. Have the cheaper New Holland gold ones & a new flange coming. $80ish for all 3 parts & shipping.