After using the zero turn mower a couple of times earlier in the year we determined that the blades were long overdue for replacement. After pulling the deck free to remove the blades I went to pull the retaining nuts from the blade end of the spindle shafts. All three shafts ended up having to come out in their entirety since the nut on the blade end wouldn't come free. Only the nut on the pulley end would come off so I just removed the blade with the spindle shaft on each spindle. Two of the spindles were ok but the third one fell completely apart so that meant what I suspected, the spindles would need replacing. Since these things are expensive if purchased locally I went online to source the replacement spindles. I had a couple of new blades but would have to pick the best of the three and sharpen the edges with the die grinder. After getting the new spindles I commenced to pulling things apart. I installed the new blades and sharpened the one old blade I chose to save. Everything wen together pretty fast, no big deal. Only thing was I ran out of time prior to being able to reinstall the deck and hooking everything up. You would think all was well and I can install the deck right? Wrong. After laying the deck down I noticed that the pulleys on the new spindles were setting higher than the tensioner pulleys on the deck that engage the drive belt for the blades. After doing an examination I came to the obvious conclusion that the new pulleys were wrong for this particular model and/or sub-model of mower. Fuck. After looking at my options, which were very, very few, I came to the conclusion that I would have to remove the blades, pulleys and entire spindle shafts and relocate the bushings that spaced the pulleys and had them riding higher than the tensioners. I would end up putting the spacers on the blade end of the shaft, which would bring the blades lower to the ground as the shaft would be lower as it sits in the spindle. This wasn't straightforward though. I had to measure the gaps to determine how big of a spacer would be needed to bring the shaft down low enough that the spline for the pulley would be at the same level as the tensioners. After doing this I was able to use the die grinder to cut pieces from the spacer bushings so I could install these new spacers on the shaft then reinstall the blades. The new position that the shafts sat in brought the pulley splines in line with the tensioners, allowing me to put on some small spacers on the top for the pulleys to rest on while on their splines so as to lessen any wobble that may be present.
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