Honda HRR Models: Rear Wheels Locking Up When Pulling Backwards

[Mow'N Weeds]

I have a question I'm hoping someone can answer for me, derived from this exact topic (rear wheels locking up on an HRR216VKR)..
- How do you tell what year HRR216 you have? I'd assume it's in the model #, but can someone confirm this for me?
As an example.. I have an HRR2169VKR. Does that indicate anything? This just happened to me with this model, and the serial # falls within the ones Robert listed, so I'm trying to determine if mine would be under this service bulletin as warranty work or not, and just in general I'd like to know how to tell the years of these.
Thanks!

 

[gotomow]

I have a question I'm hoping someone can answer for me, derived from this exact topic (rear wheels locking up on an HRR216VKR)..
- How do you tell what year HRR216 you have? I'd assume it's in the model #, but can someone confirm this for me?
As an example.. I have an HRR2169VKR. Does that indicate anything? This just happened to me with this model, and the serial # falls within the ones Robert listed, so I'm trying to determine if mine would be under this service bulletin as warranty work or not, and just in general I'd like to know how to tell the years of these.
Thanks!

HHR's are covered under Honda's 3 year warranty. You would need to look at your receipt for the date of purchase. Here's how Honda lists it on their site:
To Obtain Warranty Service:
"You must, at your expense, take the Honda Power Equipment product, accessory, replacement part, apparel, or the power equipment on which the accessory or replacement part is installed, and proof of purchase to any Honda Power Equipment dealer in the United States, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands who is authorized to sell and/or
service that product, during the dealer’s normal business hours. To locate a dealer near you, visit our web site at http://powerequipment.honda.com and click on Find a Dealer.
If you are unable to obtain warranty service or are dissatisfied with the warranty service you receive, contact the owner of the dealership involved;
normally this will resolve the problem."

Honda charges $12.10 for each adjuster, so a total of $24.20. Each bushing is $.91 with 4 required so a total of $3.64 per machine. That's more than $20 per machine, at retail of course. Thus saving Honda quite a bit of coinage per how many hundred of thousand/millions of machines manufactured.

What's interesting is that my HRX217 started almost locking up when I tried to pull it back. That's when I began to search the web for answers. I found Dave's video on his HHR and I wondered if the same thing was happening to my machine. Here is Dave's video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubnpTirPBu4
On my machine I thought I would first try spraying the bushing area with Motorkote spray lube. I've had great success with Motorkote spray in the past so I thought what the heck. I removed the wheels and the pinion gears so I could get right at the bushing. On the inside I removed the circlip and sprayed there also. I tipped the machine on each side so the Motorkote could soak well into the bushings. The results were amazing. Now I could easily reverse my mower. Not only that, in forward my machine was moving much faster at a lower speed setting.
Now you may think, "what do I care I don't reverse my machine at all". The problem is that over time your gearbox has to work harder and harder to overcome the increased friction from the shaft on the bushings. Could that lead to premature gearbox failure? Hmmm who knows, but I could see it happening.

 

[Horsehockey]

Link to Dave's video didn't work for me for some reason. Alternative link or search ideas? Thank you.

 

[Mow'N Weeds]

I swung into my local dealer the other day and mentioned this service bulletin (though I didn't have the bulletin # handy with me) and tried to get somewhere with this.
He couldn't find anything pertaining to wheels locking up while pulling backwards. Only thing I got was I found out the mower in question was on a showroom floor in 2014 and was told the only way to figure out the year was to run the serial # in their system. Either way, I'm not the original owner, I don't have a purchase receipt, the mower was never registered.. guess who's SOL for a no-charge dealer fix, but of course they could look at it for me if I wanted. I'm into this thing for too much as it is and selling it. Actually I have it sold, contingent on getting this issue fixed. Now I gotta deal with this myself to attempt to not lose money on it. Sticking another $24.20 into it will put me pretty close to being in the red vs what the used market value is on it. That's assuming I'm not even paying myself for time into it.

I messed around with it last night and on mine the bushings don't really seem to be hanging up on the shaft, from what I can tell at least. There's a short plastic 'bushing' I guess you could call it, that I'm able to pry down onto the shaft from the bottom portion of the shaft (so from the under-deck side), is this the bushing thought to be the ones associated with the wheels locking up? I got one wheel & gear off, woodruff seems fine, and I'm at the point of trying to get the bottom snap ring off, the one on the flip side didn't come off so nicely. The very first one did (outer most on the shaft) and that was the only one that did. At that point penetratant was put on both sides of the shaft at both wheels and after a bit, they were able to move backwards again, but still with too much resistance, one maybe more so than the other. Something doesn't sound right when rotating them backwards. Not sure what the hangup on mine is yet. Planning on digging deeper tonight yet, just what I wanna do on my Friday evening. I actually called a buddy and asked 'em if he wants to come over and help me wreck a $400 2014 Honda mower. Wish me luck! :laughing:

That last vid link doesn't work for me either. Just winds up going back to a non-specific youtube link.

 

[gotomow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubnpTirPBu4
Try this link^^^^

 

[gotomow]

You have to remove both the outer circlip, (right at the bushing) and the inner circlip to get the adjuster off so you check the drive shaft. If your's is rusty it will need sanding to make it easier to pull backwards. Kind of crazy to think that the shaft rusts so easily and that your expensive Honda mower is dependent on four .91 cent plastic bushings to make it run smooth.

 

[Mow'N Weeds]

That link works. I've watched that one previously, good vid.. outside of I wish it was more detailed, like step by step. It would take at least twice as long to do the job understandably trying to document each little step, but it would have helped me at least a good bit more. But at least it gave me an idea of what I'm doing/looking for/trying to accomplish.

At any rate.. that was fun! Those little snap rings/circlips are a bit of a pain to deal with. One of 'em took flight, ricocheted off a couple things in the garage - never to be seen again . My 'bushings' were a little different than what I thought they'd be going off what I've read and watched. For some reason.. mine were a 2-pc design. At first I thought one had ripped or something, but that wasn't the case. That little part of a bushing I was pulling out on the underside of shaft was more like a 'hat'. Then there was a space between that and the other end of the bushing that just seemed to be a void space filled with grease and whatever else gunk got in there. The other longer part of the bushing wasn't interested in coming out of the bracket at all. Didn't look like it needed to for that matter either from what I could tell. So, everything was taken apart, without removing the axle from the deck (which was probably only one more step away), cleaned of debris and old grease, then re-greased with blue marine grease. My axle ends where these bushings ride on weren't super corroded, but they got touched up anyway since we were down that far. Got that whole assy back together, wheels back on, flipped 'er over and set 'er down to the ground to see if that was the issue, and it It appears to be a successful adventure. Pulls back now with little effort, with that little bit of resistance per design evidently. I'm still not quite sure what was hanging them up from freewheeling backwards other than old grease and/or maybe lack of grease. From what I could tell it almost looked like a white lithium grease was the old grease, be it from the factory or a possible previous person servicing I'm not sure. There wasn't much white left to it, it looked mostly like dirt/graphite color but I found a little bit of white left while cleaning. Hopefully this 'fix' will last a good while for the guy buying this. At this point I'll say he's gonna be pretty happy with his purchase. I messed around with this 'till late last night so there's small stuff to put back together later today, like the little bolts & matching retainers that hold the plastic part of the under-deck in, which are a pain to deal with too. All in all, an interesting adventure.

 

[DUSlider]

Hello,

I have an HRR216K5VKA. My issue is with the wheels not rolling while pulling the mower backwards. I removed everything down to the axel on both sides. The right side wheel height adjuster was easily removed. The left I had to use an axle puller to remove, which left the plastic bearing on the axle, stuck on there really good.

I saw the service bulletin released for the K9. Curiously, I checked peparts.honda.com and the height adjusters part numbers for both the K5 and K9 are identical.

It seems this issue may have been around for awhile and Honda didn't do anything about it until the K9 series was released? Has anyone with a model older than the K9 been able to get Honda to goodwill the repair or parts? I think I'm just going to order new wheel height adjusters with hopefully revised bearings instead of messing with the old bearings as I'm not sure I can get the bearing out of the right height adjuster to replace it with the new one.

Also, what type (if any) of grease are you using inside the wheel height adjuster for the bearings? I was doing some research and (I can't remember where) I saw someone had used Molykote.

 

[gotomow]

I used Motorkote spray because I wanted to mow right away and didn't want to fully disassemble. The Motorkote worked it's way into the shaft good enough for right now. When I have enough time to get everything apart I'll probably use bike chain lube or garage door lube and see how that works. Grease tends to hold dirt and dust in suspension so that's why I'm going with the lubes. However, anything is better than nothing so use what you've got.

 

[DUSlider]

I used Motorkote spray because I wanted to mow right away and didn't want to fully disassemble. The Motorkote worked it's way into the shaft good enough for right now. When I have enough time to get everything apart I'll probably use bike chain lube or garage door lube and see how that works. Grease tends to hold dirt and dust in suspension so that's why I'm going with the lubes. However, anything is better than nothing so use what you've got.

I got mine all apart and re-assembled with new wheel height adjusters and bearings. I sanded down the axle but to be honest I don't think it really needed it. I think what is happening is the rubber dust seal is breaking down letting gunk in and possible parts of the seal inside the bearing, freezing it up. The right side was actually fine, it was the left side, closest to the transmission. It also had some odd wear on the plastic dust shield for the hole that the transmission axle goes through so I replaced that as well. (Hole was worn out and elongated).

Getting the spring back on the transmission was a PITA.

I've had this mower for 10 years at least. If I don't have to do this for another 5 I'll be happy.

I used some DuPont teflon non-stick dry-film lubricant on the axle where the bearing was contacting the axle and some multi purpose grease for the gear/key.