Model YTH 18542 Mandrel Assembly

[ILENGINE]

So that is why it's being recommended just to pull the deck and change the
bearings in place-------saves dealing with a broken Mandrel bolt or having to
replace the whole Mandrel assmebly?

Correct, because if the bolt breaks off trying to remove it, you will have to replace the mandrel because the chances of removing the broken bolt are very very low.

 

[STEVES]

Yes, and you can check the idler pulleys for noise.

 

[TobyU]

So that is why it's being recommended just to pull the deck and change the
bearings in place-------saves dealing with a broken Mandrel bolt or having to
replace the whole Mandrel assmebly?

This is an okay method also but for most of these residential grade riding mowers, the bearings individually will cost you more than just buying the commonly available spindle assembly on eBay or amazon..
I just did a quick search in it does irritate me greatly that they're going for about 32 to $38 for a two pack because I was getting them for 18 to 24.
However there are rebuild kits available that's called a deck rebuild kit that comes with blades and everything and this one came up for $26.

 

[TobyU]

I keep looking and it keeps getting worse. I just checked Amazon of course I always tell people Amazon is a terrible place to buy lawn mower parts 90% of the time. This is because you can get a better price and almost always a better selection if you scroll down eBay but there are a couple of things out there Amazon will give you a two pack deal on cheaper but spindles are not one of them.
Silly me, being spoiled for over 20 years with cheap Chinese stuff coming in but at great prices, just doesn't want to have to pay 18 to $25 for one spindle assembly.
Even though back in 2010 the prices started at $49.99 at Lowe's for an MTD brand one and the local shops were charging 62 to 70 for some of them and I don't even want to think about what John Deere dealers were getting for some of theirs.
Regardless, I'm spoiled and I don't do change.
I have some still here wrapped in Saran wrap that came as a multi-pack unit that I purchased probably around 2015 to 2017 and I was getting two packs and three packs and these things were literally under $9 shipped to my door.
This is the way it should be!!

 

[bertsmobile1]

The 4 bolt spindles are now available from China for almost nothing and yes they are cheaper than just buying quality bearings
But the bearings in them are junk made for the Husqvarna clones and designed to fall apart 3 seconds after warranty
I buy them for the spindles & housings as of course those items bought separately are quite expensive and the spline at the top always fails because the star on the bottom prevents blade slip.
I usually fit NTN bearings from Japan which are a reasonable price from my wholesaler .

 

[StarTech]

Well as long as people buy by price alone and don't consider quality they will always be disappointed in the end. Yes things are cheaper but so the lack of quality. So I ask the customers do they want cheap spindles or good quality ones if I need to replace them. Yes I buy at lower cost too but I do try to compare apples to apples not apples to lemons.

The after market bearings I have tried were failing do to poor grease. It was drying up becoming hard causing the sealed bearing to fail. Once I started cleaning out this grease before installation of the bearings and replacing it with good EP2 wheel bearing grease the problem went away. Just takes a little more time than simply slapping in a set of bearings. Now I get my bearing from a bearing supplier and I still repack the ones with rubber seals as they are Chinese bearings with lousy grease.

As for the double hex end failing most times it it is it was never properly torqued. I get in spindles with stripped pulleys, repair things by replacing the pulleys and spindles, torque them to specs, and next time the mower comes with problems the blades are bent.

My current problem mowers are Gravely ZTRs where the blade retaining screws are so tight that I can't even break them free with a 900 ft/lb impact here or using a 3/4 breaker with a six foot cheater bar. I'm sending the mower to a heavy equipment shop where they have stronger impacts. These just round blades that tightening screws way past what I can get loose. I know it more of static bond then super torque due the rusting that is involved but getting pass that initial bond is a pain. I got to upgrade my equipment if I keep seeing these. Normally the 1/2 dr AirCat can get about anything loose but I am now considering adding a 1400 ft/lb 3/4 1778-VXL to my tool line up.

 

[TobyU]

The 4 bolt spindles are now available from China for almost nothing and yes they are cheaper than just buying quality bearings
But the bearings in them are junk made for the Husqvarna clones and designed to fall apart 3 seconds after warranty
I buy them for the spindles & housings as of course those items bought separately are quite expensive and the spline at the top always fails because the star on the bottom prevents blade slip.
I usually fit NTN bearings from Japan which are a reasonable price from my wholesaler .

That's fine but only IF a person uses quality bearings..
I would venture to say that 95 plus percent of the people do not end up with quality bearings because the average bearing you buy today is also cheap junk.
Even though this is the case, I find they still last long enough to be quite respectable.
Frankly, the fact that these old mowers went 15 and 20 years plus with the same bearings in them was wonderful but a little absurd if you consider it.

Something spinning that quickly and for that many hours and especially in the lousy conditions with a lot of them getting damp or literally sprayed on with water hoses or pressure washers, which I strictly forbid, and the various blade impacts over these decades...
Anybody should be happy to get 6 to 8 years out of a bearing in these conditions but yet we did so much better.
So if anything it's pretty fair now but when I can get a spindle for $11, and if I get over 5 years out of it, I'm more than getting my money's worth.

I understand that there are some people that would gladly pay three times as much to get something to the last three times as long because it is the exact same amount of money.
I only consider this for things that can cause catastrophic additional failures when they fail or things that are very hard to replace.
I don't consider lawn mower spindles to be either of these.

 

[TobyU]

Well as long as people buy by price alone and don't consider quality they will always be disappointed in the end. Yes things are cheaper but so the lack of quality. So I ask the customers do they want cheap spindles or good quality ones if I need to replace them. Yes I buy at lower cost too but I do try to compare apples to apples not apples to lemons.

The after market bearings I have tried were failing do to poor grease. It was drying up becoming hard causing the sealed bearing to fail. Once I started cleaning out this grease before installation of the bearings and replacing it with good EP2 wheel bearing grease the problem went away. Just takes a little more time than simply slapping in a set of bearings. Now I get my bearing from a bearing supplier and I still repack the ones with rubber seals as they are Chinese bearings with lousy grease.

As for the double hex end failing most times it it is it was never properly torqued. I get in spindles with stripped pulleys, repair things by replacing the pulleys and spindles, torque them to specs, and next time the mower comes with problems the blades are bent.

My current problem mowers are Gravely ZTRs where the blade retaining screws are so tight that I can't even break them free with a 900 ft/lb impact here or using a 3/4 breaker with a six foot cheater bar. I'm sending the mower to a heavy equipment shop where they have stronger impacts. These just round blades that tightening screws way past what I can get loose. I know it more of static bond then super torque due the rusting that is involved but getting pass that initial bond is a pain. I got to upgrade my equipment if I keep seeing these. Normally the 1/2 dr AirCat can get about anything loose but I am now considering adding a 1400 ft/lb 3/4 1778-VXL to my tool line up.

I don't find this to always be true.
I have had no problems with these cheap spindles. They last far longer than they should for the money I've paid for them.

Now there are other things I will not buy again.
I replace two window regulator assemblies in two different cars a few years ago that I purchased on eBay for $36 and 42.

Neither of them lasted 40 days and probably hadn't gone up and down 20 times.

When they failed I went to O'Reilly Auto Parts and bought the doorman lifetime warranty one for $79.99. it is still working fine..
It ever does fail I will simply have to remove it and spend the 20 minutes it takes to take it out drive two blocks to the store warranty it come back and stick it back in.
But I will never again risk one of the cheap ones online.
Until I start having problems with spindles I will do the same with these.

I will also recommend not buying aftermarket camshafts for Briggs & Stratton engines for the ACR problem.

The OEM are lousy enough in quality and I had one of the cheap ones fail and under 5 months and not even 15 mows..
I put the factory OEM one back in and it's been almost 2 years now.

 

[ILENGINE]

I will also recommend not buying aftermarket camshafts for Briggs & Stratton engines for the ACR problem.

The OEM are lousy enough in quality and I had one of the cheap ones fail and under 5 months and not even 15 mows..
I put the factory OEM one back in and it's been almost 2 years now.

I am curious of what the repair failure of the OEM Briggs camshafts are . Has anybody experienced repeat failures with the same customers mower. Or is it more of a "one and done". It seems like a lot of the ACR fail and lots of camshafts get replaced but in the large scheme of things I wonder what the overall failure rate is.

 

[StarTech]

Considering the shear number of the 21, 28, 31, and 33 the failure rate is quite low. And for it is mainly the 31 series with a few 33 series. Kinda strange that I don't the same failure in the 21 and 28 that uses the same camshaft. THe only repeat failure I had was the cheap Chinese knock off I tried.

I noticed on the latest 793880 camshafts that an engineering change has been made. They have hour glassed the ACR pin so that the lifters are now contacting it less.