Hello - Tractor really croaked! The pin that holds one side of the mower deck fell out and the right side mower Blade was making a horrible noise! Blade was scraping and hitting the mower deck housing! I replace the pin after attaching the left side mower deck and installed new 2 HD premium blades $41.98 after rewards and surprise bonus only $13.55 ! ! ! Just removed the bolt and changed the blade. I used car ramps to drive the front wheels of the tractor on and a soft blanket to make it easy! Click pic to enlarge: Pic 1 - Holy Crap this right side blade is bent! Pic 2 - Old standard black blade vs new HD Premium red blades Pic 3 - Good end Pic 4 - Bent end - Holy Crap! Pic 5 - New Blade installed Pic 6 - Cost to fix. Paid Cash
Looks like you wore through that set of blades. They usually will wear out at the heels like yours did or crack from the edge inwards. You done pretty good getting the tractor to outlast the original blades.
We must have nearly the same units. My ol'girl has been used and used up but keeps goin. Other than standard maintenance my only replacing has been the pin you mentioned, a deck belt and two sets of blades. She smokes a little now and the out chute is about wore thru. Best rider I have had. I put non mulch blades on and it goes through 3x the shtuff now.
It's probably the same tractor as my 42" mtd. Blades look the same. I had to replace my blades a few years ago. It'll probably need a new set in 3 or 4 years. If I don't replace the whole tractor with something that will allow me to cut the time down from the 1.5 hours of seat time now.
Bet that quieted things down a little Don. Your blade looks like mine did during our years at the farm. I used the mowers there for bush hawgin' as much as grass mowing. I usually was able to find a few rocks each time too...
My BIL brought down a set of blades from his Deere for me to sharpen this spring. They were original to the mower...probably 10-15 years old. I'm guessing the last time the blades were sharpened was at the factory. Took me a minute to figure out which side to sharpen.
