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Built to fail

J

john in la

Well-known Member
Location
What part of in La do you not understand
A good selling point for mower salesmen is the blade spindles on the riding / zero turn deck are greaseable.
Keeps the spindle bearings from wearing out.

So how many of you grease this grease fitting???

Now for those of you that are willing to admit you grease the spindle bearings.

Did you really do any good or just waste your time???

Now to the point.
Can someone explain to me how putting grease into the spindle housing does any good when the bearings are sealed???



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ran a lawn mower shop for 12 years, very seldom sold bearing but did a lot of shafts and hubs because of way mounted. they are still that way on current models except some of the 12 to 15000.00 dollar units
 
One seal is removed before installation, sometimes they come that way, but often they come with both still in
 
Just finished the mandrels on my cub cadet two weeks ago. Yes remove the inner seals. Next pump about a quarter of a grease gun worth of tan GP grease in. About 20 pumps. Be very carful when you meet resistance. Gently GENTLY squeeze a last pump of grease and it will slowly start to ooooze out of the seals. If you pump to hard you will blow the seals out. Then you will need to take the mandrel apart again and push them back into the bearing. There are bearings with metal seal rings and next time I will order those. They are more rugged.
 
Can you come up with a number of 'mower' owners that even know what a 'Zerk' (greaseable) fitting is ? Head shake in order.
 
Those assemblies on my Ferris have a little relief valve on the side of the housing. The grease fitting is on the top end of the shaft. I usually grease them once a year, until it comes out. But I just did it again as I put on new blades.
 
You pop the inside seals out. This mower deck is a 1969, I've had it since about 1984 and put new bearings in it then, still has those brgs. today and just finished it's weekly four hour 1 3/4 acre job, gets a couple of pumps of grease every other week.
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That reminds me of the guys who rebuild the tractor generators with the little front and rear oil access tubes (with the cute spring-loaded caps) and install sealed bearings. The oil MIGHT get in there....eventually.
 
I'll take a stab at that.

The grease fitting is there for all the old-timers who remember to grease their stuff. The seal is on there with a little grease inside the bearing so the bearing lasts a reasonable life for all those other people who:

A: Don't know what grease is. And could not care less.

B: Don't read their owner's manual.

or

C: could care less because 'its just a lawnmower.' I bet they treat their car the same way.
 
Here ya go. I used the 6203 and 6204 rs bearings in my mandrels. Here is the one you want to make things truly greasable. They have a ZZ at the end. Have Metal sealing rings. The others have code rs that I would guess means rubber seal???? The ZZ ones should work much better. My guess.
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My mower has a decal on the mower deck that states, to grease the spindles every 100 hours of use. It also shows a grease gun with a long handle, and to use 3 pumps. I know from experience that a gun with a long handle puts twice the grease as a pistol grip gun. So I put 6 pumps with a pistol grip gun in every 100 hours and I have over 1000 hours on the mower with no problems. I know from experience that too much grease in a high speed shaft will make it get hotter. I know a lawn mower deck is not a high speed unit.
 
I sold Dixon mowers for 18 years, when they added a zerk every mower that I sold I Filled the housing with grease,, there is no problem getting the grease to flow from one side of the bearing to the other it will push right past the seal when it is running with the housing full of grease, they lasted Thousands of hours then,, I did hundreds of them that way,, if you just give it a few shots from a grease gun do not bother Fill it full, takes about a 1/4 of a grease cartridge to do each one,, with that and the caster pivots I always used over a tube of grease on each mower also made them run whisper quite as most sealed bearing have little grease in them from the factory, I always used my bearing greaser to fill any sealed bearings on my combines ect you just have to not get crazy and push the outer seals out
 

My Zero turns with no grease fitting I have never had a quill bearing go bad... My 98 Cub Cadet with grease fittings gets them regular I keep it greased every 10 hours. What gets the CC is over the winter moisture rust/pits the tapered bearings. It sets under a shed this year the belt rusted to the pulleys so bad it was locked up and got the belt when I en-gauged it SHOCK...

OK I will admit I was gonna clean all the grass off it but never got around to it : ( The problem I have with it is after one use it loads grass on top of the deck heavy and with all those belt covers its beach to keep clean...

Its the worst mower I have ever had for grass build up on the deck... 30 min. of cutting and its loaded..

Its not a grease problem its a moisture problem... Part my fraught I know...
 
Little different question but still about lawn mowers. If I mow 2 times a week, 3 hours to mow each time, mow from May till October, that is 26 weeks at 6 hours a week, times 26 = 156 hrs of mowing. How do you get so many hours on your mowers. Commercial mowing?
 
As someone else said, you can easily pop one side off. Probably cheaper for them to buy container loads of bearings with both seals already in them. Three guesses as to where those bearings come from.

I grease mine, but then it has tapered roller bearings in each spindle; 90's model Toro.
 
I grease the spindles on the Grasshopper. They are still quiet @1200 hours. We have a Woods belly mower with about 3000 hours of use under a Farmall B. The spindles have been greased religiously throughout those hours. I have replaced the bearings on one of the three spindles to quiet it down. The bearings were not shot but were getting there.
 
John and a lot of the other fellows on here need to think a little bit on this one. LOL (I asked this same question 20 years ago when JD first did this.) The bearing number was JD 9296, the same clear back to the decks on the original JD 110 lawn tractors.

Think about how a lip seal works. They are sealed to keep grease IN the bearing. So you have two bearings with an open cavity between them. The grease zerk/passage puts pressurized grease in this cavity. So when the grease hits the seal the grease lifts the lip of the seal that is towards the cavity and goes right into the bearing. The seal on the OUTSIDE has its lip facing in towards the grease and holds it inside the bearing.

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To test this take a thin piece of flat plastic. I like using an old microfiche card. You can easily slip it under the seal of most common bearings. Some bearings have a double lip seal that faces each way but they are not very common.

These grease fittings are supposed to be greased after every 100 hours of use. They are only to get one or two pumps at that time. I have replaced very few of these bearings after JD put the grease fittings in the decks. They also spaced the bearings further apart then the ones in the older decks. These two things made these bearings failing a rare event.

The ones I have had to replace failed because of one or two things:

# 1 cause of failure!!!! Old farmer types acting like it was an old corn picker that needed the bushings greased every day and then pump until you see grease squirting out. Well great on the old stuff not so great on a sealed bearing. That can easily blow the seals out and make the bearing fail. Also fills the top of the deck with grease that can then get on the drive belt and pulleys.

#2 common cause of failure. Something wrapping around the lower part of the spindle and then working itself under the wrap shield and ruining the lower bearing seal. Most common around farm yards was mesh wrap. Most common around cabins was fishing line.
 
P.S. The JD engineer that answered my question 20 plus years ago, went on to explain why removing the seal that is towards the grease cavity, would shorten the bearing's life. Mower spindles spin at high speeds. Many can be at engine speed, 3600 rpm or so. This high speed will sling the grease away from the bearing's balls if the seal is removed on one side. The grease fitting is there so that the bearing's grease is "refreshed" periodically. So your getting the best of both worlds. The easy maintenance of only greasing but a longer life than they would have without the grease being "refreshed".
 
Grease mine a couple times a season. Must be working since the mower is ~30 years old now. Have had to put new bearings in some of the idler rollers. They don't have zerks on them, just a sealed bearing.

I put something around 120 hours per year on it. That times 30 means I'm around 3500 hours :shock:
 
I grease mine before each use. Dixie Chopper 16/17 years old. No bearing failures so far. After the mower has been used for a while, the bearings will get louder. Grease them and they get quiet. I just believe in grease. Use a lot of it on lawnmower, tractors, and sawmill. One of my pickups has grease fittings on the front end. It gets grease too.
 
> John and a lot of the other fellows on here need to think a little bit on this one. LOL (I asked this same question 20 years ago when JD first did this.) The bearing number was JD 9296, the same clear back to the decks on the original JD 110 lawn tractors.

That's some good info, JD. I'd think that for any grease to enter the bearing, the bearing would have to be very tight around the shaft. But even if some grease leaks around the bearing, it should help prevent dirt from entering the spindle.
 
good explanation JD,, I had said the same basic thing but yours is better for those who do not understand the way I talk/type , I also know how to use a oil can,, something few if any use today on a regular basis,
 
IMHO, spindle bearing failure is caused by water, leaving mower out in elements. All spindles failure I've seen is full of rust. Perhaps grease keeps the water out.
 

When a spindle bearing went on the LX188. I said the heck with it and ordered three complete new spindle assemblies . Instead of taking the time to press bearings and seals off and on.
 

I worked at a bearing manufacturing plant for many years. The bearing in question is available from the manufacturer in just about any configuration desired. Seal on one side only, seals on both sides, dust shields on one side or both sides, or totally open. NO difference in cost.
 
I had to read you post 3-4 times about how the grease gets in the bearing before I understood it. Now it makes perfect sense. I especially agree with the part about the covers keeping the grease in the bearing at high speeds - especially since this is gun grease.
 
Mower decks have grease fittings? I'm 99% sure I've never seen any on the ol JD 111 I've been running for close to 25 yers. I do remember replacing the deck bearings once. Plastic baler twine had wrapped on the shafts. This machine has a lot of hours on it but no meter. If its not cutting grass it is in the shed. No water ever gets near the bearings.
 
(quoted from post at 06:11:50 08/29/19) Mower decks have grease fittings? I'm 99% sure I've never seen any on the ol JD 111 I've been running for close to 25 yers. I do remember replacing the deck bearings once. Plastic baler twine had wrapped on the shafts. This machine has a lot of hours on it but no meter. If its not cutting grass it is in the shed. No water ever gets near the bearings.
Click to expand...

My Woods L306 has greaseable spindle bearings. I've never seen a grease zerk on any Riding mower.
 
My experience doing mechanical maintenance for 35 years is that a sealed bearing will last about as long as one that is greased in normal conditions, longer if the greaseable one is over greased, especially in a high speed application. I serviced our sons Husqvarna 54 inch Zero-turn last week, and it had zerks, so I greased it, but he had let it sit out in the rain recently, that is a bad thing to do.
 
Rusty,

All my Ford (Jacobsen built) garden tractors from 1966 to 1972 have zerks on the mower spindles as does my 1986 Gilson built Ford.
My main mower now is a 2000 "high end" series 3000 Cub Cadet and it too, has zerks on the mower spindles.
All of these are classed as Garden Tractors, not Lawn Tractors if that makes any difference.

Having said all that, my late F.I.L. bought a cheap little Monkey Wards mower years ago with sealed spindle bearings and no zerks.
I did replace the bearings in one spindle after one of them failed after about 10 yrs of relatively hard use.
That amazed me!
Click to expand...
 
biggest issue I seen is with the way the bearing is mounted it is not actually locked to the shaft that's the big issue I have seen, ran shop for over 12 years still selling parts
 
My El Cheapo mower came without Zerks. I drilled the mandrels and installed them and it is still going after 18 years. And I even stand it on its tail with a boat winch and wash it out and grease it after every use. I also cut my grass wet when I take a notion, like today. YMMV. Mine doesn't.
 
There are many factors involved in bearing life. The quality of the bearing, speed it spins, environment. Over greasing is just as bad as under greasing. Too much grease can insulate the bearing and hinder the heat transfer. The quality of grease also makes a difference. Always use a complex lithium grease for high speed bearings. Do not use with moly or any other solid mixed in it such as grease used for slow moving, high loaded applications. Problem with spindle bearings is, you don't know how much to pump in without packing the bearing.
 
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