Toro greensmaster 1600 drum bearings (student work)

Great project for my student to tackle . Lots going on with dismantling drums etc. 

Project ,replace all drum bearings and seals . 

Lots of parts ..some left hand threads . Some parts look like they come off a certain way but they don't . 

Wasn't planning on this repair . But I can show him how he could repair this if needed

Other than threads their supposed to look the same 

Finished dismantling and replaced bearing and seals in center hub . 

He's a pretty good welder so I let him tackle filling in the groove . 

Showed him a trick  by using a marker and sliding bearing on and off show where it needed to be filed down . We mixed up some metal based epoxy for imperfections on shaft . While we were waiting for it to cure a bit I explained that you can multi task if you have a few jobs on the go and trying to avoid down time . 

So he replaced a couple of badly chaffed hoses on one of our 7400

Showed him that by placing tripods under front decks you can force rear deck down for easy access for repair . He thought that was pretty cool . 

Finish a light filling and start assembling. Repaired part looks great . 

Lining up mounting holes and knocking it in place with blocks of wood .

Telling the student it's great to keep some wood blocks around to help protect and hold parts on jobs around the shop .

assembling drums together

 After he was done we drug out the levelling plate and showed him how the right side was adjustable to square reel and drum .

 Not to bad a job but was a great teaching tool for sure .

Below are picks of another machine that I had an outside bearing go and didn't notice that possible the inside ones might have been damaged too . This is the reason behind replacing all bearings while it's apart . That way everything gets inspected and you will avoid future down time on this unit. 

Had a  couple of hours to start building TX gator head protectors . 

JD TX gator head protection and accessory rack

During the season we keep an Eye out to see if we can make things better,safer, and more efficient .

Chris  ( Superintendent ) was concerned  for the guys (and gal) driving away from play having to look back for errant shots . So we came up with this plan to speed things up and make it safer . 

Students in today so after tackling bearing and seal replacement on a Toro greensmaster 1600 there was a little time for this project. Cutting out the measurement I relayed to him .  

A little reminder to drill holes out before welding together . It's much easier to use the drill press .

Materials all cut to size . For safety reasons I cut the mesh to size with cut off wheel . Already for paint 

This morning I'm doing a mock up of adding a few gear holding options . 

I've made snipper holders in the past but could never figure out an easy to use system on the TX gator . If it's not easy to use your wasting your time and money because the crew will not use it after leaving the shop .

Finally the head screen made sense to mount side hooks for trimmers 

Holding everything in place with vise gripes till its figured out 

Even made a mount to keep hand blowers out of the dump bed . There getting beat up pretty bad from bouncing around . 

 Looking good 

Welding in hooks etc.

Pick of parts for 2 more racks . Student will make a bunch more next week . 

Material list . Around 40 to 50 $ and about 1.5 to 2 hours of time . 

A few more pics

 Bolting the first one on after paint dried 

Small vide of a walk around . Turned out great . It was a very easy build with a mig welder .

Took me a while to figure out an easy latch system to keep shaft from bouncing over the side . From my experience if its nor easy the staff will not use it .Took the hooks off and crimped one side closed and welded

The weld will keep it from falling off the pipe clamp . The above pic would eventually slide out 

Drilled a matching hole for other end . Simple just pull across snipper and attach to tailgate

 They can just dangle inside or out when not in use

One guy has folded it in too already and latched it to the welded area when not in use .

Looks great . Last for txs done yesterday .

TX Turf Gator Gasket leak repair

This season I had 2 of these engines start leaking crankcase gaskets . I've had similar issues with Vanguards in the past and really didn't have much luck finding a permanent fix. Not going to get into much detail about removal etc. Just about what I'm doing to resolve the problem .The cause I believe is from vibration from clutch when the machines working hard on take off . 

Model # etc . for ordering gaskets . You should also replace the crankshaft seal to while it's apart.

Easy to take out . Less than a half hour with a lift.

Clean the engine bay out before replacing engine .

Here is the leak . Yes those bolts have just back off from vibration 

I'm using a shaft of a grade 8 bolt with a fine thread 9/16" bolt to pop drive clutch off . After the second machine started to leak I ordered the proper puller from JD . If you can get one from somewhere else I would suggest doing so . JD doesn't really want to sell you the tool but would rather have you bring machine in for them to repair I was told??? Ah That's what I'm hired to do here at my course !! I like their gear but they needlessly make it hard for me to do my job .  Took quit a while to get one . But I wasn't in a hurry either.

Also one bolt vibrated in two. Busted section just threaded out so it wasn't cross threaded.

There was a discussion once about possibly the bolts were slightly longer than the bore .So I remembered and decided to look into this theory . 

In this case the bore was plenty deep . An after thought for me was maybe air gets trapped in the non through bores causing a false torques.

One of the techs was replacing the bolts with new zinc coated ones with excellent success. I took it one step further and trying these low torque double locking washers . Not cheap but If I'm not redoing this machine again will be well worth it . 

 Torqued them to JD spec and they where good all summer . I did notice one had a leak under it and thought for a minute …. here we go again . On closer inspection noticed the oil filter had loosened off . 

Next crankcase seal job I'll come back and redo this post with more details . 

Still vibrating loose !!!!

I'm going to try this suggestion next . 

By removing a half inch off this shield with a box knife and snap it off you can actually replace gasket in frame of TX . 

Area circled 

bottom 2 bolts and top 3 I'm replacing with studs and using lock washer and lock nut . 

report later if its a forever fix .

Held for a while but still no luck .Bolts are backing out from vibration .

After 6 months back to the drawing board .

purchased some wire tie pliers and products.

Last attempt. Hopefully this will work . Came with this little clamp for drill but found it hard on drill bits . 

Free hand on the vise work just fine .

Wired them in pairs . The idea is when one tries  to vibrate out it greats tension on wire tightening the other paired bolt . So technically they can not back out . I will report back at some point if this is in deed a fix .