Mold and grass buildup on mower deck underside

[Bronco82]

I have a John Deere D140 with a bagger that I use for the first few mows of the season to prevent all the dandelion seed distribution. I know it's not ideal to mow wet grass, but sometimes that isn't an option, and the grass has to get done (even though it means stopping every few laps and unclogging the chute to the bags).

I went out to the garage yesterday after mowing the lawn and could smell the wet grass under the mower deck. I took it off and spent the next two hours with a putty knife and wire brush scraping the grass off. It varied in depth from almost a thin wax like coating, to about three inches in some spots.

I have scraped most of it off I do believe, but would like to do something to it to prevent this from becoming an every time I mow thing. And yes, I will attempt to get the lawn mowed late afternoon, early evening when it is at its driest, but again, not always an option, and I will be ordering some new high lift blades to hopefully help with moving the cut grass across the deck and up the shoot.

Not sure if I will have to remove the blades and then pulleys to do a proper sanding, priming and painting/treating, or if there is some magic trick I can just apply now?

Thanks in advance folks.

 

[tomplum]

Unfortunately, nothing is close to permanent. There are products such as MoDeck for that purpose. I've seen those who wax the underside of a new deck to the guy who used bedliner. I've personally tried grease paint on a brand new and prepped deck. The dirt fines picked up by the blades are an effective sand blaster. I have customers who park on a mower lift and scrape it each time.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I used to do that years ago but now I never cut wet grass. I cut the day before they call for rain and it can be a foot tall afterwards I'm not cutting unless grass is dry.

 

[5030]

Nothing you can apply to the underside of any deck, fabricated or stamped (I prefer a fabricated deck as it's thicker gage material will stay on very long, no matter what the mainfacturer of the product claims, IOW they are all just a waste of money.

Your best bet is to clean it regularly. I never remove the deck, I just pick up the entire mower, deck and all with a short chain or strap attached to the front axle or a convenient point and hoist it up woth one of my tractor's FEL and clean it. Somethimes I use the pressure washer, sometimes a putty knife (depends on how thick the 'cud' is on the underside of the deck) and call it good, but when I clean it, I always regrease the spindles afterwards. It's a good time to check the blades for wear or divots as well. When I hoist mine up I don't stand the vertical, just hoist them enough to access the underside of the deck easily.

How I do it, your mileage may vary.

One thing I always do is they get cleaned prior to winter storage as that 'cud' promotes corrosion over the off season... and moldy wet cud stinks anyway.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I also just never cut wet grass. 6 years on this mower. Never scraped or cleaned. The deck gets blasted each and every mow, so nothing will be a long term solution IMHO.

The time spent maintaining a deck is time I could spend mowing dry grass

 

[5030]

I get little to no cud but I do get some that I remove with the methods I listed previously. My big issue is the sandy loam I mow over. It eats up baldes, well the rearmost kickup gets destroyed by the sand blasing. They get replaced yearly because of that issue.

 

[rgr33]

I installed a deck wash kit on my z turn, $10
Not as good as scraping, but does pretty good job

 

[5030]

I installed a deck wash kit on my z turn, $10
Not as good as scraping, but does pretty good job

The issue with those are, they will contaminate your spindles with water and displace the grease of you don't greas them after you do it. Nice design that has underisreable after effects. My wife's ZTR came with them and I've never used them.

 

[Bronco82]

I figured that would be the case, that there isn't one tried and true thing that can be used and will last, but was hopeful.

While the deck is off, I may as well remove the blades and spindles, change blades, grease spindles, and grind the entire underside, prime and paint, so at least there is an extra layer of protection there.

 

[mrmikey]

I've got a long nozzle air gun and use to scrape/blow a lot of the crap out from underneath after every use. I don't expect to get it all but I do get a good percentage of it. Come fall I take the deck off, flip it over, take the blades off and give it a good scraping and coat it with used engine oil, sharpen the blades and put them back on ready for next year.

 

[5030]

Never take either of ours off. What the FEL is for....

 

[zzvyb6]

That's what pressure washers are for. Be sure to grease the spindles afterwards to shove out any water than might have gotten by a worn seal.

My gravel driveway did a pretty good job of cleaning off the underside.

 

[bigtiller]

The issue with those are, they will contaminate your spindles with water and displace the grease of you don't greas them after you do it. Nice design that has underisreable after effects. My wife's ZTR came with them and I've never used them.

I removed the one on my new ZTR. I think it's sole purpose is a trip hazard.

 

[Williy]

The spindles with a zerk fitting on them don't grease the
bearings the bearings are sealed you need to take the spindle
out lift the seal on the bearings and add grease

willy

 

[WinterDeere]

I just pick up the entire mower, deck and all with a short chain or strap attached to the front axle or a convenient point and hoist it up woth one of my tractor's FEL and clean it.

I've been doing the same off and on for years, not as religiously as I should, but there are only so many hours in each week. I've taken to jamming a big wood block (LVL section) under the rig after lifting, ever since having had a hose failure on my loader while lifting a brush hog / rotary mower deck to clean under it.

You'd think a loader probably bleeds down relatively slowly when a hose fails, but nope... mine came crashing down like a sack of bricks dropped from a window. Even relatively young and athletic, I was maybe 40 when that happened, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I'd have been able to get out from under that rig as fast as it came crashing down. Thankfully I was 20 feet away, turning on the hose, when it happened.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

I try my best to only cut dry grass, but even dry grass has a decent amount of moisture in it. Tried the deck wash part on deck, really didn't work. I found myself lifting and fast releasing so deck would hit ground hard to dislodge clumps with water running. Easier and cleaner to raise deck and scrape with putty knife.

 

[chim]

As mentioned, there's no magic. I've tried repainting, Fluid Film, Lanox, spray oils, etc. Our grass can be pretty juicy even though it seems dry. I don't take very good care of my decks.

Cleaning is done using one of two methods. One is with a long handle scraper with jackstands under the RFM. The other is with the RFM raised and the tractor parked with the front wheels down over a steep bank, then using a pressure washer.

Recently the DeWalt 20V pressure washer was pressed into service following some wet grass mowing sessions. The mower did an outstanding job, and when the underside of the deck was hit with the DeWalt, big clumps of mushy grass fell right off like big dark green wads of soaked toilet paper. SPLAT!!

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I changed the oil in my Hustler today, and took a look around while under there. Clean as a whistle. It's never once had the deck cleaned

 

[FullMetalBucket]

I had to mow up north. It was tall and wet, no choice. It’s been raining so much there this year, I had to cut on a day that there was a break in rain. Looks like my next trip will be cleaning the crap stuck under the deck. I probably should have used the finish mower behind the T25 instead of the JD. It was slow going.

 

[mjonesnh]

Nothing you can apply to the underside of any deck, fabricated or stamped (I prefer a fabricated deck as it's thicker gage material will stay on very long, no matter what the mainfacturer of the product claims, IOW they are all just a waste of money.

Your best bet is to clean it regularly. I never remove the deck, I just pick up the entire mower, deck and all with a short chain or strap attached to the front axle or a convenient point and hoist it up woth one of my tractor's FEL and clean it. Somethimes I use the pressure washer, sometimes a putty knife (depends on how thick the 'cud' is on the underside of the deck) and call it good, but when I clean it, I always regrease the spindles afterwards. It's a good time to check the blades for wear or divots as well. When I hoist mine up I don't stand the vertical, just hoist them enough to access the underside of the deck easily.

How I do it, your mileage may vary.

One thing I always do is they get cleaned prior to winter storage as that 'cud' promotes corrosion over the off season... and moldy wet cud stinks anyway.

Keep a short chain routed to the front axle of my ZTR axle. Use a chain hook welded to the FEL bucket and pickup front of mower. Use an old butcher knife and putty knife and scrape deck every 2 months or when blades changed.