Toro 5410 replacing broken or missing Groomer Blades

This is the older style groomer . We had a couple of blades missing on one of the groomer heads . I found out that the newer 5410 has a different shaft style that I installed last season . The newer style is not working for us and our fairway mowing conditions. Lost 16 plus groomer blades on the newer style  . Toro and Vesey's Equipment will be  graciously fixing me up to the older style since they are not going to work out for us .  



We have about 150 + grooming hours on the older set and have only lost 2 blades . I'll show you how I replaced the missing blades leaving the machine on the lift .

The missing blades are on the Left rear unit . Remove the brush belt cover ( if you have brush kits )No need to lose adjustments on brush kit this way .

Next the belt came off and I removed the 3 bolts holding the brush kit plate to groomer .

Groomer cover came of next.

Remove the groomer belt tension spring and groomer belt .

I used a 13 mm socket and 5/8 wrench to remove the nut on the groomer shaft pulley .

                                                                                                                                                                

 When removing the pulley don't lose the key and keep track of any alignment washers and what side of the pulley it is on .The bushing may stay in place after you pull the groomer in a few steps down below .

I removed the reel drive motor next and took the nuts off the stud so that the Allan head bolts can be moved next along with the bolt holding the adjuster in place .

Carefully remove this plate and support the groomer shaft .

 You can now carefully pull the groomer out for service .

 Groomer shaft is out . Only takes 10 minutes or so .

 Pic of the spacer / groomer pulley

  You can use the 5/8 " wrench and 1 1/4 " wrench this way to get the spacer and plates off..
 
Each blade has a spacer between them . They are also marked with the drilled out hole in one blade so you can stagger them properly . I moved one flat to the right as I added spacers and groomer blades .

 Reassemble in revers order and remember the key ( shown above ) and pulley alignment washer if it had one . Some off them may not have needed one . Just down left from groomer grease nipple is the bushing I was talking about earlier .

Not to bad of a job . My first one took .5 to .75 of an hour but next time with tools laid out I should be with in the .5 hr. mark + -. you can also check and clean belts and pulleys when reassembling . I had also used blue loc-tight on everything .

Front Facing Bedknives

This is one of the most important process to do at a course if your the only mechanic on staff . After grinding reels and bedknives they will last quite a while with minor daily adjustments . With the modern day practices of applying light top dressing sand weekly or bi- weekly on greens your QOC ( quality of cut ) will drop of dramatically . This is a quick way to get a fresh off the grinder cut if the topdressing has been applied/brushed in/irrigated in properly . Here is a video of how long it takes to do this process from start to finish . In the video I'm doing it from the bench top because they happen to be off the machine while their verticutting tees today . I do them from the machine on the lift so the removal time didn't apply . There are a few techs that will do both grinds on bedknive if the reels are still in fair condition . I have tried this many times and it worked out great .

 

Sorry about the end of the video . Needed a few more hands .  

In the video my tools are already to go and grinder is front faced set at 13 degrees as per Toro guideline . I use a drill and ratcheting wrenches  to speed things up . They set up quickly if you don't back off the click adjusters to much . HOC was also set in this time frame . If the front faced knife doesn't quite get you the cut your looking for you can do a quick backlap on the machine . I did all 3 on the Toro 3150 Q in less than 25 minutes plus didn't have to backlap .

I noticed that the flexes I had ground last week had lost their edge do to the fact that the heavy rain on Friday must have kicked the sand back up on top of the green causing more wear than usual . This is a good time to evaluate whether to grind the reels to .  The reel lands where well rounded and I had to regrind 3 flexes today . Front face would not have been a good option in this case . Sand / weather / watering practices all have a play in how quick reels can wear out . If done properly you can get 3 to 4 weeks out of a grind . It is usually the case here but sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate.

Toro new style verticutter scraper comb update

http://golfcoursemechanics.blogspot.ca/2013/05/comb-scrapers-for-newer-style-toro_27.html

The Super had them out today . Worth every penny . Kept the front roll cleaned off at all times . I'm trying some bungies on the bucket rollers to keep them cleaned off too . Worked pretty well .

 The comb part of scraper kept the debris evened out on the green . We use to blow of the green with the pro force tow behind blower . Today we used a hand blower.

Did a great job at 1/16 depth .

Below is a picture of the reason our diesel GK IV was having a problem running today . We use an old GK to clean up after blowing the greens off before the topdress goes on

The machines not used much and had a little water / algae and sand clogging the filter . Runs like a top again with a new filter.... and conditioner in the fuel .



How to install park brake buzzers on your Toro MD or MDX's

Ever have the problem of guys driving off with the park brake on ? There is NO kit available to prevent this from happening .You can go through a set of brakes pretty quickly .  Our TX Gator has one and I figured out how to apply the same principals  to the Toro MD and MDX .



I laid out all the parts and used a battery and jumper wires to figure it out . Finding the right power source we be important .   

Finding the power source to make it the same as the Tx . On the stop and go switch ( accelerator ) find the blue wire . It will, only activate power when the throttle pedal is depressed . In the above pic I spliced onto this wire .

 I have a good length of wire and wrapping it in 1/4 " wire loom .

Following the same path as the main wiring harness .

Down inside the frame .

You may have to use mechanics wire to fish the wire through.

Then bring it up in the same area that the park brake cables go through .

I'm using a Club Car Micro switch and placing it so as you lift the park brake it with hold the switch in .

 The washer are just for spacing to keep it centered and I drilled holes straight through and used cotter pins to through washer and switch to hold it in place .

Finish wiring it up to a Club Car reverse Buzzer . I put it here so the guys could hear it better . Although it is fairly loud it maybe not enough . I'm getting some back up buzzers and may move it to inside framing of dump box area . They will defiantly here that .

So now when then key is in the on position and park brake lever is pulled up there is no noise till you depress the pedal activating the circuit for the buzzer .

Using the propane torch here too heat inside area of park brake cover .



Next , while it's soft I pressed out the area where the buzzer was getting in the way .

Creating the bump you see above to allow the park brake cover to go back on .

 

And hear it is . The guys should be able to hear this one . The first one took and hour to do but the rest where no more than 20 minutes with all the tools needed laid out .

Tournament Day

As a superintendent and mechanic you can prepare yourself for a great course conditions for a tournament but the only thing you cannot control is the weather . This morning we arrived to work with plans to spray fairways ( 2 sprayers )Vent greens  and get caught up with mowing and rolling greens after mowing  by 10 o'clock . The tournament of the day requested to have no staff on the course  by the time they where to start . The forecast didn't really show any bad weather for today but it had rain all night and started to pore before we could finish up in time . It was a good day to clean up the yard and shops and have our first tool box meeting and to go over our course rules and regulations pamphlet. There was a Q & A afterwards and we talked about equipment and wear areas on the course and what was expecting from staff . Lots of tips and tricks past on from the seasoned staff to the Newbies . This will speed things up with the new employees and they learned a lot more about how the course operates at the maintenance level .This was also a good time for me to tackle the leaking steering cylinder on the Toro 5410 fairway mower . It was just seeping but lately I noticed more leakage from the area and felt it was now time to tackle it . Job went well not a daunting as I thought it would be .

A few pictures of the steering cylinder .

 Came out really easy . I marked a line down the entire back side in a row so it could be put back together the way it came apart.

 The instructions where down loaded from the Toro Web site.

 There are a lot of parts , but I'm only concerned in the replacing the faulty seal and dust seal .

The seals between the sections were also replaced as where the O rings on 5  bolts that hold it all together. After following instructions install on machine and try it . Put the dust seal on after you know it's not leaking any more .



  Another update on the fairway 5 x 2' double cut lines . Everything was looking really well till the fairways are going to seed now . Now I'm noticing the lines again everywhere . I'm  sure  it will pass in a week or so .