Bird
Epic Contributor
There's been discussions in the past about getting the blades off rotary cutters to sharpen or replace them, and the fact that the manuals usually call for some ungodly high torque values, so I thought maybe I should post what I just found with my Howse 500 that I bought a year ago last August. It was time to sharpen the blades a bit. First I found that the castle nut that holds the pan onto the spindle was an inch and a half, so I had to buy a new impact socket. It was definitely tight and would undoubtedly have been difficult to remove by hand, but my half inch impact took it off. Then the manual says, after you remove the nut, to use a two legged gear puller to pull the assembly off the spindle. I made one, using two 5" C clamps and a heavy, but short piece of channel iron. Even with that and a 4lb. hammer, it was tough to get off, but did eventually pop loose. And then the bad news; the nuts that hold the blades on the pan are 1 5/8" (as far as I know the inch and a half is the largest socket available for a half inch drive so I didn't have a socket big enough). With the manual calling for torque values in excess of 600 ft./lbs., I figured I was in trouble, but decided to at least give it a try with my 15" Crescent wrench. You can imagine my surprise when I quite easily unscrewed both nuts with one hand./w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Those big nuts have lock washers under them, but were not much more than finger tight. So if you have one of these mowers, you might want to check it - sure would ruin your day to have one of those blades fly off. After sharpening the blades I had no way to tighten the nuts except with the same 15" wrench, so I don't know what the torque value would be, but at least I know my 200# on the end of that wrench had to get them tighter than they were before.
Bird
Bird