4.75" deck idler pulleys....warning

The image provided here is the flat idler pulley for the deck of a lot of Bad Boy and other mowers. The one in the left is what Bad Boy is sending to their dealers. It is Chinese $33 crap. 6 hours and the bearings are shot. Easily identified by the 6 rivet design. The one on the right is the original Don Dye US made pulley with 528 hours on it, 2008 vintage. You can buy these on Amazon new for $30 if you ever truly need a replacement. On this original one the radial and axial tolerances were just fine but was running a bit dry. Have some .050 grease needles so drilled the metal shield at an angle into the bearing cavity and pumped in a very small shot from opposite sides. Spun it up and nice and quiet and axially much tighter. So now I have a spare. Seal the hole with a dab of hot melt "glue" and when mounting place the drilled shield facing down toward the deck. Feel free to let Bad Boy corporate know they're screwing with their dealers reputations. Call parts at corporate.

What a lot of blokes have done with shot bearings in idler pulleys is to drill out the welds , install new premium quality (Timken etc) bearings and then bolt the 2 halves back together using a nyloc nut
Works a treat

Ozcub said:

What a lot of blokes have done with shot bearings in idler pulleys is to drill out the welds , install new premium quality (Timken etc) bearings and then bolt the 2 halves back together using a nyloc nut
Works a treat

Click to expand...

Yeah....until I look at all 18 rivets. Both sides are fully headed which means accurately center punching and drilling.....because grinding is subject to slips and gouges. If I had a milling machine this would be trivial...just use an end mill to cut them to just above the surface and pin punch the rest out. But....I don't.

But is not the one with 18 rivets the replacement one , what about the original off the machine

Or
Read this thread

Ozcub said:

But is not the one with 18 rivets the replacement one , what about the original off the machine

Or
Read this thread

B

Thread 'Bad Boy Idler Pulleys'

Jul 26, 2025

I've got a 2017 Outlaw XP with a 54" deck. It's approaching 120 hours. I've already replaced one of the idler pulleys and the other 2 aren't far behind. My replacement was with a Capitol Stampings OEM style, but I'm starting to wonder about the quality of these. I noticed on Amazon that a company sells a replacement with replaceable bearings. It's called BigBearing Billet pulley. It sounds like a great idea, but I have little doubt that they come from China. Anyone have any experience with these.

• Brewboy
• bad boy
• Replies: 16
• Forum: Bad Boy

Click to expand...

The original is the 18 rivet 532 hour Don Dye. Both are still useable and smooth. I replaced one with that Chinee 6 rivet that failed in 6 hours. But the Don Dye are head and shoulders above anything else that Bad Boy could offer and does offer. And if you notice, the new Don Dye is listed in Amazon for a Dixie Chopper....who still seem to understand quality. That said, my 2008 lightning has been virtually trouble free. The only major expense was having to buy an input shaft for the left Hydrogear pump because dumbass Bad Boy couldn't see their way clear to spend $.002¢ on some never seize on the pump shafts or the electro clutch.The only way off was to break it off. Even 800°oxyacetelene wouldn't loosen the pulley. You can't heat it too much as there are seals to worry about.

One of the things I did add was a clutch soft start. A $40 module that ramps up the amperage to the clutch over tens of milliseconds instead of just dumping all the current to it all at once....sorta like a slip clutch. Smooth starts every time.