smokey, I remove my belly mower for snow removal. I don't want to take the change of damaging anything with the mower so I take it off. Also the mower deck is much wide than the tractor so it doesn't make sense (to me) to keep it on. When I remove the deck in late fall I scrape the bottom of the deck to remove all traces of grass clippings, pressure wash the deck, grease everything and spray wd-40 on the bottom to keep some areas from rusting. I also "unhook" the mower drive belt and hook it back up in the spring time. I store my deck on a pallet which is then lifted onto a pallet rack for winter storage which is located inside.