Had this mower for awhile, have procrastinated changing out the blades, took the deck off today and had a lot of trouble taking the nut off the remove the blades (never had this issue with my old John Deere). Had to use my impact wrench to get them off. Anyway didn't realize that the nuts had stripped out partially coming off and possibly the spindle shafts too on 2 of the three spindles. Saw some kits with three replacement spindles and blades and a belt but I wondered how difficult is it just to replace the Spindle shaft vs the whole spindle. Or could I just try and replace the nut? I also can't seem to find replacement info on the nut and he kits don't include the nut.
You will need the mower’s model number and serial number for the exact part. You might as well replace the spindles and blade nuts. Call your local Cub Cadet dealer and ask if they can rebuild them for you. That will save you a little money. That’s as long as you remove them and take them down there.
If you think the blade nut was hard to get off, wait till you try to replace the entire housing
Usually 1 if not all of the bolts ( screws actually ) will break off just before your hernia bursts .
Spindles are easy to replace but the blades need to go back on so you can hold the shaft while you undo the pulley nut on top.
However if you are going to replace the spindle then you would normally replace the bearings while you are there .
A lot of the aftermarket spindles are METRIC threads while the originals are UNC
Not uncommon for some one to force an ebay metric nut on an OEM unified spindle.
All of the people who fitted one of the ebay special spindle & belt kits / belt , blade & spindle kit , brought the mower back to me after one or more of the spindles failed in service usually taking the blades with it and often slicing through the deck skirts while it was there .
The most counter fitted item on the planet are bearings and there are a lot of trash ones out there , particularly the sealed ones that come with nothing but assembly / transport grease in there .
These are what you will find in those kits .
The bearings are "shopping trolley" grade .
Shoddy retailers see them on Made in China for $ 5.00 US a piece , buy 500 of them plus 200 $ 5.00 US belts then sell then to smucks too cheap for their own good on ebay / amazon.
Listen to what @bertsmobile1 said. Use genuine Cub Cadet/MTD replacements or quality aftermarket parts from Stens or Rotary. The cost between genuine Cub Cadet/MTD and the Stens or Rotary aren’t going to be that much different.
