Hi Troops,
I finally got around to doing some servicing on my Tiger Cub. This is my first time leveling the deck and it took me 4 hours. The owners manual covers the basics however I had to get a little creative to level the deck side to side and then the fore and aft leveling was easy. I set the deck to the specs in the up and locked position and I was surprised to see that the blade height was 1/2" lower than the calibration on the height adjustment. Anyway I also replaced the deck drive belt and the vibration that I had been feeling while mowing went away. The belt had a few chunks missing from it which probably were causing the vibs that I noticed. I also checked the clutch gap which was still within spec. I had plans to replace the pump drive belt and idler pulleys, but the belt looked good and I had lubed the pulley bearings and replaced the collection blower bearings 50 hours ago.
Later!
Added service note:
While doing an oil change I poured oil into the new oil filter before installing it and I was surprised at how much oil it took and how little came out when I installed it. I haven't done this in years but I may start doing this in the future. The filter on my Ford van is installed vertically and my diesel VW has a vertical cartridge so I may fill both in the future, if I remember!!! HaHa!!! Ingersoll has a Vanguard engine with vertical filter.
Later
Hi Troops,
Went to do a customers lawn today and the pump drive belt was squealing!! Put the machine back into my trailer and went home. Checked out the source of the squealing and found the smaller pump drive idler pulley was wobbling!!! I replaced the smaller pulley, drive belt, the hydraulic filter and some hydraulic oil while I was at it. The old pump drive belt looked OK but was getting stiff and whipping causing the small idler pulley tension arm to cycle excessively. Also found a sizable nick in the drive pulley on the engine, was able to clean it up with a short file. The old drive belt showed wear on it that had been caused by the nick in the pulley.
Just gave it a trial run and inspected and also found some loose bolts/nuts in several places.
I will do a valve adjustment on the engine soon and hopefully that will be the last of the extra maintenance that is needed for a while.
I'm waiting for the new Hustler X-ONE to arrive for the cemetery assoc of which I am an officer. The old 1993 Excel 260K will finally get replaced. We need a rear discharge deck machine and Hustler is one of the few that offer rear discharge decks. Scag doesn't offer rear discharge decks on any of their machines therefore the Hustler and the cemetery assoc and I am OK with Hustler machines!!
Mad Mackie in CT:biggrin::laughing:
