Mower blade fiasco

[KennedyDiesel]

I've always run the high lift blades on the 54" deck on my 455. Last year I tried some std and dis not like them. Ordered some high lifters and left on the shelf for this season. I went to open them and they flat out suck. Nowhere near what I used to run.

The "wing" on the true high lift is about 4" long and about every bit as long as the cutting edge. The wing on these is mabe a bit more than an inch long.

The true high lift also has an offset to raise the mounting point about 3/16" or the thickness of the blade. The new ones are flat which lifts the blade 3/16" further up into the deck.

Old number M76467

New number M135590

If anybody can shed any light on potential source for better blades I'm open to suggestions. The 54" deck is a rock solid design that suffers from lack of volume in the rearward area and raising the blade up sure doesn't help this at all.

 

[John_in_TN]

JD Parts shows the high-lift blade for your deck is M152726.
This appears to be a current p/n - my local dealer shows 12 in stock.

Maybe you just have the wrong blades. Are the mounting holes correct for your deck? Your description sounds similar to the blades used on the "L" or "D" series mowers.

 

[KennedyDiesel]

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like there may be a few different varieties of 54" decks out there so figured I'd best start digging to verify for sure versus chasing my tail. My owners book says I need M60506 for discharge performance, but I may try M60507 for cut performance as I never have liked the cut of this deck.

On edit the numbers above are apparently the picture part numbers and not a true part number.

M76467 is the correct number but supercedes to M135590.

Laying the blades flat on bench the new blade matches the height of the old, BUT the cutting edge is not perpendicular to the table. It rises significantly as the blade is "bowed" rather than bent into an offset.

 

[John_in_TN]

Glad your getting it sorted out. Have you tried the new blades? Results?

 

[KennedyDiesel]

Dealer pulled the number that you gave and it's longer and much more offset. Probably for a Ztrak.

I'll be looking at swapping the blades shortly. Last year I tried what I believe were std blades, but may well have been these crappy new high lift design. I won't know until I take the deck off and flip it up.

 

[John_in_TN]

My mistake!
I just looked at JD Parts again and you do have the correct part numbers. Don't know how I got the wrong p/n before.
Let us know how the new design works out.

 

[KennedyDiesel]

Looking at the owners book again at the different blades I decided that the Cut Performance looked like what I should pursue. Years back a budy gave me a pile of old blades from his 54" deck as he had upgraded to the x series and they were just laying around.

I went out to the cabinet to see which ones they were and low and behold they were the Cut Performance blades # M115496. Quite a bit of stamping and twisting going on with these. Looking up from below they have a concave surface with a flat stamped into the center for the washer to sit on. Further out towards the cutting edge the blade actually pitches upward to the rear and has a small wing at the rear tip. The old high lifts had the cutting end parallel to the ground and a big wing bent up. The Cut perf units actually seem like they may act like an airplane wing and accelerate the air over the top creating lift.

So I sharpened them up and headed out to mow pasture. This is heavy clover that came it too strong so I recently sprayed it to thin it back, but it was still upright with little wilt. It's been wet and humid and the grass and clover was 8-10" tall thick and soggy. I set the mower at highest level and went after it. It didn't take long before the mower started to cake up and make the grunts and vibrations of a plugged deck recutting clods. I haven't had such conditions in many years, but there was not much I could do about it as there was more rain coming and I didn't want to brush hog it so I kept on. It actually seemed to do much better with the deck plugged and these blades than what it did with the other blades with very little being missed. I could see a hint of a stripe between both blades, but nothing blatant or tall. I finished and shut off the deck where it promptly puked a big pile of clods. Again it's been so long that it didn't dawn on me to stop periodically and let it drop or it probably would have done better yet.

Cautiously optimistic but seems to be much better.

I have a x748 with the 60" deck coming for demo and our main lawn needs mowing so it will be interesting to see how they compare head to head.

 

[JDTank]

Not sure if they interest you, but have you ever tried gator blades? I put a set on my in-laws old Craftsman last year, and I am very impressed. Even damp grass comes out like dust. The clippings get recirculated and cut probably 5 times before they exit the deck. The ones I bought are very thick, and they can take a beating. They have about 75 hours on them right now, and they are still sharp, with no chips or dents from the few rocks we've hit so far this year. They have held up amazingly well.

I cut the huge back lawn for a test, I bagged one half, and not the other, and there was no way to tell a difference. Needless to say, I finally talked them out of bagging grass for good!

 

[mfreund]

I will second the Gator blade performance. I am very happy with the performance of mine. I also don't think any finish mower does a great job as a brush hog. You might need a dedicated mower for the pasture.

 

[KennedyDiesel]

I'll look into the gators after I finish my trial of the Cut Performance blades. Surveying the section that I just cut it looks like they did a pretty darn good job all things considered.


"Hogging" the pasture when it is tall is not something that we typically do. We typically cut when it's much more sparse and shorter. The "hay burner" hasn't been able to keep up this year and past attempts to overseed has gotten the clover (5% of blend) in and dominant.

I struck out on the 748 with 7 iron demo as it sold. Working on a 748SE 54" demo.