What I did with my mower deck -
My major problem was the rear roller thing often
catching while backing up, flipping the deck up
vertical. Looking at the geometry, the brackets that
hold the bar for the rollers stick way down, close to
the ground. Also, sharp turns really drag those rollers
sideways across the grass. My yard is nowhere near golf
course green smooth. I bought 3" diameter caster wheels
from McMaster Carr. I welded up frames similar to what
GE made for the front casters, and made brackets to
mount them on the rear corner brackets that the bar
brackets were bolted to. Each caster uses 2 wheels
side by side, to get some of the wide effect that the
old rollers would have. I used the same diameter shaft
and sleeve and nylon bearings and spacers as they used
for the front casters. I also made a 3rd one for the
center, to act like the center front roller, so it
doesn't scalp a high spot / point. As part of this
caster's mounting, I added a stiffener angle iron across
the rear of the deck. I also added a 1" square tube
from front to back over the side exit chute to make the
deck more structurally sound.
I get far fewer flip ups while backing now. I do
occasionally get a scrape from the middle caster, if I'm
on a high spot, but I am ok with the trade off..
I do have pictures of this stuff, don't recall if I can
post them via this group. I also have them on my
facebook, since I'm on an ET group on there also.
Dave
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