Mower Deck Rattle

picnic · Apr 28, 2019

I'd appreciate any insight here.

I struck a small stump hidden in the grass. As soon as that happened the mower deck began to rattle. All seems fine if I disengage the PTO. As soon as I engage it, the rattle starts up. I also noticed, that it appears that the right side of the deck is now gouging the yard. Today I took off the deck and inspected it, but I don't notice anything unusual. The belt looks fine, spindles all turn, blades don't look deformed nor do they seem loose. The deck is a 54 inch on x570.

Any ideas?

If all else fails, later this week I'll likely begin calling up repair shops to check this out, but for obvious reasons would prefer not to go that route...

Thanks

dave_r · Apr 28, 2019

How does the deck look when it's mounted on the tractor? Maybe one or more of the mounts have bent or even broken?

CCMoe · Apr 28, 2019

With the deck off the machine, turn the spindles and see if they are true.

Place a straightedge, 2x4, anything that you believe is straight across the bottom edge of the deck, measure distance to blade, rotate blade and measure again, they should be the same. If not, you may have bent a spindle, deck.

Good luck.

CCMoe

Alberta Al · Apr 28, 2019

Check to see if the lift bolts are properly seated at the top. They can pop out if you hit something with the deck.

picnic · Apr 29, 2019

Well I went ahead and put the deck back on, attempted to level it, checked the mounts...

How does the deck look when it's mounted on the tractor? Maybe one or more of the mounts have bent or even broken?

Looks good. No issues I can see.

Place a straightedge, 2x4, anything that you believe is straight across the bottom edge of the deck, measure distance to blade, rotate blade and measure again, they should be the same. If not, you may have bent a spindle, deck.

Appeared to be okay at a glance. Didn't have time to pull out a ruler to measure this. However, I will spend Tuesday dissembling and putting back on the old pair of blades (these blades are newer), and see if the issue persists.

Check to see if the lift bolts are properly seated at the top. They can pop out if you hit something with the deck.

Yup all good here.

picnic · Apr 29, 2019

I should also add, I noticed today that the right side of the mower deck could not be leveled (raised or lowered). I don't understand why, seems ok when looking at it. The left side raises and lowers as one would expect. Since I could not raise the right side of the deck, I lowered the left side to level the deck.

Also, again still noticed the right side cuts the grass about 0.5 -> 1.0 inch shorter than left side.

CCMoe · Apr 29, 2019

Did you pull the belt and turn each spindle, rock it back and forth to see if there is any play.

Check the idler pulleys, they are usually a sealed bearing but can go bad and make a grinding, rattling sound. Rock the idler also, lift each spindle and pulley to see if there is any play there.

Grease, grease, grease makes these decks last.

I coat the underside with used motor oil to fight rust, the death of decks.

CCMoe

picnic · Apr 29, 2019

CCMoe said:
Did you pull the belt and turn each spindle, rock it back and forth to see if there is any play.

Check the idler pulleys, they are usually a sealed bearing but can go bad and make a grinding, rattling sound. Rock the idler also, lift each spindle and pulley to see if there is any play there.

Grease, grease, grease makes these decks last.

I coat the underside with used motor oil to fight rust, the death of decks.

CCMoe

I played with the spindles and tried to dislodge them, spun them all. All seems well. I tend to keep up on maintenance of the cars, tractors, trimmers, etc, but I will admit I never greased anything as the manual says I should, and it's been 120 hours so far...

I will be attempting to replace the blades on Tuesday and see how it goes.

CCMoe · Apr 29, 2019

picnic said:
I played with the spindles and tried to dislodge them, spun them all. All seems well. I tend to keep up on maintenance of the cars, tractors, trimmers, etc, but I will admit I never greased anything as the manual says I should, and it's been 120 hours so far...

I will be attempting to replace the blades on Tuesday and see how it goes.

picnic,

Is it still under warranty?

Probably not unless you are a mowing machine.

If you take it to Deere, they charge $100 plus per hour, doesn't matter if it's half million tractor or GT.

Can you video what it is doing, there are a lot of great people on here that I'm sure would be willing to help.

Also, can you describe the tree root incident in more detail, any chance the belt is missing a piece or burned in a flat spot.

Reaching here but trying to save you taking it to a shop.

CCMoe

Profound Ag · Apr 30, 2019

Dad did something similar last summer. Whacked a small stump he should have known was there. The deck cut unlevel after that. We played with the mounts and checked the spindles and couldn't figure it out, we had the deck on and off that machine I bet a dozen times that weekend. He hauled it into Deere after he gave up (he hates having to admit defeat and go to the dealer) they couldn't quite figure it out either. He found a used deck someplace and threw it on and all was well. We figure he tweaked the deck enough that the naked eye couldn't see it but it really doesn't take much to cause an uneven cut.

CCMoe · Apr 30, 2019

I would think that you could pull everything off the deck, spindles, wheels, scalp wheels, everything.

Lay it on a concrete floor, measure to the floor around the spindle openings, if they don't measure the same each hole, I would think that would be the issue.

CCmoe

picnic · Apr 30, 2019

I remeasured in daylight this time, and recognized 2 of the 3 blades were off up to 1/2 an inch. I put on the old blades and remeasured, 2 of the 3 were dead on. Went to test PTO and it again rattled, but didn't seem to rattle as much. The cut was even this time in the lawn too.

At that point I began to wonder if there is any issue at all, and if I've been hyper focused on the rattle after hitting the stump. Or, perhaps all the mower blades need to just go to the shop to get resharpened and rebalanced.

My intention at this point is to mow the property at the next opportunity and reevaluate.

picnic · May 4, 2019

I mowed our several acre property. Honestly the rattle I barely noticed and it's likely not that big of a deal. Never had a problem mowing.

However I see lines spanning the property following mowing. So something still isn't quite right, and it occurs with both sets of blades, on the right side. See here: https://imgur.com/a/TfxKZd5

Each line from left to right is from the right side of the mower. Strange. This is with the deck set at 3.25 inches.

picnic · May 8, 2019

For anyone still following the thread, worked on this with a buddy for a few hours.

We discovered the bolt on the mower deck linkage was stripped out completely for some reason. Since there are two heads to it, we simply turned it around to reuse it (though we will buy a new one at some point). After fixing this, the deck no longer rattled and sounded normal. I hadn't had a chance to test it out on the lawn due to weather, but we're pretty sure we identified the culprit.

The right side linkage couldn't "level". Instead I leveled the left side to the right side. This was OK at first, but as soon as the PTO engages, or I hit a bump, the deck would actually unknowingly drop by an inch on the right side. The bolt and linkage couldn't hold it up. Therefore, the right side linkage would rattle when the deck was engaged (loose bolt). And therefore, the right side would create a gouge in the lawn as it was about an inch shorter than the left side. That's the hypothesis at least.

bill J · Jun 17, 2020

picnic said:
I'd appreciate any insight here.

I struck a small stump hidden in the grass. As soon as that happened the mower deck began to rattle. All seems fine if I disengage the PTO. As soon as I engage it, the rattle starts up. I also noticed, that it appears that the right side of the deck is now gouging the yard. Today I took off the deck and inspected it, but I don't notice anything unusual. The belt looks fine, spindles all turn, blades don't look deformed nor do they seem loose. The deck is a 54 inch on x570.

Any ideas?

If all else fails, later this week I'll likely begin calling up repair shops to check this out, but for obvious reasons would prefer not to go that route...

Thanks

i have a fix, rattle comes from the 2 aluminum drive shaft alignment bracket bushings came out, the cheap ***.
I built two heavy duty units for my 1023e with replaceable bushings. he original bushings are not replaceable. JD wants you to buy a whole new undercarriage

Mower Deck Rattle

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