Mower deck wheels extension

[Deltadart]

I may be the last one to the party with this idea, but if so please excuse my late arrival. We live on some acreage about 20 miles west of Spokane, Wa. Our yard was not graded and groomed, but carved out of the woods surrounding the house. Due to the threat of forest fires we made a green zone of about 4 acres around the place, although we still have plenty of trees in the yard they are spaced and uplifted. At first glance the yard appears flat and for the most part it is, but there are lots of small humps, drops, and bumps in it. Lots of rock in this area and they move up and down during the winter / summer. When ever we mow the yard it had a lot of scalps in it and was not attractive at all. Tried a few different mowers but they all did about the same. The best being a Toro 14Z38. It lasted for more than 24 years but is having some issues which we will be addressing. We now have a Husky TS348XD, this had the fewest complains in reviews so we chose it for multi purpose use.
It did about the same as the others on mowing leaving plenty of scalps in the yard. I added some aluminum bar stock 2 inches x 5 inches x 1/4 inch to each wheel on the deck. The bottom edge is radius to prevent digging in. See the photo, thus extending the four anti gouging wheels down about 1 1/2 inches. The plates have a couple of holes for adjustment. This greatly improved the appearance of the yard after mowing with the height set on 3 inches. These keep the deck rolling on the yard and not bouncing up and down creating the scalps. I am pretty sure this would work with any mower deck welded or stamped if you are experiencing a similar issue with an uneven yard.
View attachment 70977

 

[MParr]

Ingenuity.
Do you realize that the mower deck is not supposed to ride on the anti-scalp (gage) wheels?
Are you cutting the entire 4 acres with that mower?
I have 3 acres to cut and it's pretty bumpy. I use a commercial 60" zero turn mower. I cut at 2.5" to 3" depending on growing conditions. Mine doesn't scalp bad even set at 2.5". My gage wheels are set at the top bolt holes.

 

[Deltadart]

Tried setting them in top holes a long time ago on a different mower and it didn't help, When in the garage the wheels are about 1/2 inch off the floor when set at 3 inches.

 

[MParr]

Tried setting them in top holes a long time ago on a different mower and it didn't help, When in the garage the wheels are about 1/2 inch off the floor when set at 3 inches.

That's too low for the gage wheels.

 

[Auto Doc's]

Sounds more like you need a compact tractor and a finish mower that is designed to run on 4 wheels that have greaseable bearings.

Anti scalping wheel are only designed for occasional contact with the ground to prevent the deck housing from scalping and pushing dirt.

With these extensions, you can plan on buying gauge wheels fairly often.

Also, you need to study up on the pitch and level of the manual deck adjustments. Often people have the nose/front of the deck pitched down and it should not be. Don't assume everything was set correctly by the store you purchased your mower from.

I was a service manager for a John Deere dealer in years past and practically every new mower we setup had to be adjusted properly. The factory only performed "close" adjustments.

Aside from that tires have to be the correct profile from side to side and aired up properly on the rider.

 

[Deltadart]

The easy one first, I do keep the tires at the factory recommended pressure. When I purchased the Husky, the deck was not level, among several other problems, no grease in the wheels, I did level the deck using the garage floor. My neighbor thinks I should buy a belly mower attachment for my Deere 2305, but that will not work as the tractor is not maneuverable enough to get around the trees in the yard. The issue is when the front tire of the tractor drops into a grass covered pot hole the deck drops as well and gouges badly. The wheel extensions limit the downward travel of the deck, lessening the gouge significantly. Not a perfect fix but acceptable. I assumed the gouge wheels would become sacrificial as they would have more ground contact than before, but that is the trade off. Buying new lawnmowers is not an option, this one cost almost 4000.00, and does what I need it to do mowing, leaf gathering, occasional snow blowing.

 

[MParr]

Try lowering the air pressure in the tires and then adjust the level of your deck.
Try 10 psi in the rear and 12 psi in the front. That will give you less bounce.