Rhino rotary cutter minus 1 blade

corwin5 · Jun 12, 2002

Folks,
This past weekend, I was using my LT5 rotary cutter in some dense weeds and unfortunately came upon a "hidden" tree stump.
The tractor immediately stalled and after re-starting, the LT5 ran with a distinct vibration.
Thinking that I had "dinged" one of the 3 blades pretty severely to put the cutter out of balance so much, I looked under and found that one of the blades actually came free from the attachment point; it appears as if the bolt attaching the blade to the rotary piece actually pulled through and is now distorted so that, even if I could locate the blade (no luck yet), the hole to attach the blade is warped and wouldn't accept the blade, as is.
The cutter is less than a year old and I've been very pleased ( up to this point), but I would have expected the shear pin to have broken and relieved some of the apparent stress on the blade attachment. I'm sure that this isn't a warranty item, but I certainly would have expected the shear pin to alleviate some of this type of damage.
Anyone have a similar incident? Does anyone have acces to a parts list for a Rhino LT5 cutter? Rhino has discontinued in favor of a new product line and I'm having problems locating a repair manual.
Thanks in advance.

EdKing · Jun 12, 2002

I have a Rhino LT5 cutter, but mine only has 2 blades. I have the manual with parts list, I will post the 2 pages concerning that section of the mower.

Here is pic 1

EdKing · Jun 12, 2002

Here is Pic 2, I hope this helps out.

corwin5 · Jun 13, 2002

Ed,
Much thanks for the diagrams.
I have done a little more research and chatted with the folks at Rhino. It appears as if the replacement shear pins supplied may not be a grade 2 and are a 5 or 8.
While I'm not pleased at this possibility, it gives me a better confidence that this wasn't a manufacturing defect. Are you generally pleased with your LT5?

EdKing · Jun 13, 2002

The only problem I've had was one time when I sheared a bolt, the shaft slipped back towards the gear box and I had a heck of a time getting it to slide back foward over the remnants of the shorn bolt. You can get all the details of that adventure in this </font color=blue>thread. I sheared quite a few bolts when I first got it and was figuring out how to set the mowing height, but other than that it has performed quite well.