Someone gave me a Craftsman self-propelled (FWD) mower a couple of weeks ago. It's only 5 years old, but the self-propelled drive
. didn't. Today I started working on making repairs. Both front axles were bent. The bearings for the front driveshaft assembly were shot. The drive gears were worn, the gear teeth inside the drive wheels were stripped out and the front tires are bald. It's had a hard life apparently.
One of the 50 cent roller skate bearings from the 1950's that they used for driveshaft bearings.
The outer body is stamped sheet metal that encloses the inner and outer bearing races.
The original sheet metal bearings were over sized and crush fit into the wheel adjuster housings. Parts houses only sell complete wheel adjuster assemblies to the tune of $48 each. I found identical sheet metal "mower bearings" with the wobbling inner races for $6.77 each. For another $2.00 I decided to go with some actual ground steel bearings without the slop in them, even though they are slightly undersized on the O.D.
I will need to make some spacers to go outside the new bearings since they are more narrow than the old ones. But I can just part off some of the inner races from the old bearings and use them since they have the correct diameters already.
The .003" difference in the size of the bearings and the hub of the wheel housings was taken care of with retaining compound. The "Primer T" was used to immediately cure the Loc-Tite so that it didn't have time to run down into any other part of the bearing. Great stuff.
It amazes me how abrasive plastic is against a hardened steel gear.
The steel sleeve thats supposed to be pressed into the center of the worn out wheel on the left had galled to the axle and pulled out when removing the wheel. I finally twisted it off the axle and then polished them up a bit. (The axles.)
I'm still waiting for a couple of new pawl pins that connect the drive gears to the shafts, and I need to open up the drive differential to look for any problems there. But this was today's adventure.
One of the 50 cent roller skate bearings from the 1950's that they used for driveshaft bearings.
The outer body is stamped sheet metal that encloses the inner and outer bearing races.
The original sheet metal bearings were over sized and crush fit into the wheel adjuster housings. Parts houses only sell complete wheel adjuster assemblies to the tune of $48 each. I found identical sheet metal "mower bearings" with the wobbling inner races for $6.77 each. For another $2.00 I decided to go with some actual ground steel bearings without the slop in them, even though they are slightly undersized on the O.D.
I will need to make some spacers to go outside the new bearings since they are more narrow than the old ones. But I can just part off some of the inner races from the old bearings and use them since they have the correct diameters already.
The .003" difference in the size of the bearings and the hub of the wheel housings was taken care of with retaining compound. The "Primer T" was used to immediately cure the Loc-Tite so that it didn't have time to run down into any other part of the bearing. Great stuff.
It amazes me how abrasive plastic is against a hardened steel gear.
The steel sleeve thats supposed to be pressed into the center of the worn out wheel on the left had galled to the axle and pulled out when removing the wheel. I finally twisted it off the axle and then polished them up a bit. (The axles.)
I'm still waiting for a couple of new pawl pins that connect the drive gears to the shafts, and I need to open up the drive differential to look for any problems there. But this was today's adventure.
Willie