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This is my first blade change and the nuts are on tighter than I can get with wrench, so will have to get impact on them.
Can someone tell me how I can get deck low enough to get impact wrench on the top nuts on the blade spindles? Also, how do you access the middle one? I see some of the other SCAG videos and it looks like they flip up the foot tray but I don't see how to do that on the Patriot?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Jeff

They all come off from the bottom.
Hold the blade then hit the nut
Only undo the top nut if you are going to change the pulley or bearings in which case you do it first

Mudbone said:

This is my first blade change and the nuts are on tighter than I can get with wrench, so will have to get impact on them.
Can someone tell me how I can get deck low enough to get impact wrench on the top nuts on the blade spindles? Also, how do you access the middle one? I see some of the other SCAG videos and it looks like they flip up the foot tray but I don't see how to do that on the Patriot?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Jeff

Click to expand...

I have three Tiger Cats and have never changed the blades on a Patriot. However from looking at pictures I see of them it looks the same.

The way we change them is take a small floor jack and stick under the front of the deck. Raise it as high as it will raise. We use a 19 Volt Craftsman Impact.

We take the nut off which is on top of the spindle. Then the bolt will fall out. Then take the spacer and the blade off of the bolt and put the new blade on making sure that the wings are up. Then put the spacer back on. Then drop on one knee and stick the bolt back through from the bottom and start the nut. Then after you have done all three blades that way, take the impact and tighten them back.

We change blades on two mowers some times twice a day and at times three times. It normally takes only about 5 minutes to the mower.

On a couple of occasions we have had a blade that we could not get the impact to take off. When that happened we take a combination wrench and put the boxed end on the bottom on the bolt head turned upside down so that it angles up. Fowl it so that it bottoms out on the frame of the deck. Then take a long breaker bar with a socket and put it on the top. Position the breaker bar where you have a good angle for leverage. Normally this works. One a couple of occasions over the years we have had a nut seize and the threads mess up in it. Then we take a 41/2" Side grinder with a wafer blade on it and cut the bolt off at the top right at the bottom of the nut. Make sure that you do not grind into the spindle. Then the bolt will drop out and you can replace it with a new bolt.

Nothing I have ever run works better than the system used on Scag.

Hope that helps.

bertsmobile1 said:

They all come off from the bottom.
Hold the blade then hit the nut
Only undo the top nut if you are going to change the pulley or bearings in which case you do it first

Click to expand...

ON Scag mowers the spindle has a hole all the way through it and the bolt goes all the way through with the nut on top.

Scag Patriots have a solid spindle shaft. The blade bolt installs from underneath and threads into a hole in the spindle shaft, different from Tiger Cub/Cat, Cheetah and Turf Tiger.
The front of the machine must be raised up to gain access under the mower deck to both change blades and clean the deck.
A tool called a blade buddy and other names is a tool that will slip over two blades when pointing at each other. This will hold the blades while the blade bolt is being removed or installed.
A strong cordless impact tool can be used to remove the blade bolts, however the proper blade bolt torque is 75 FTLBs dry torque.

Mad Mackie said:

Scag Patriots have a solid spindle shaft. The blade bolt installs from underneath and threads into a hole in the spindle shaft, different from Tiger Cub/Cat, Cheetah and Turf Tiger.
The front of the machine must be raised up to gain access under the mower deck to both change blades and clean the deck.
A tool called a blade buddy and other names is a tool that will slip over two blades when pointing at each other. This will hold the blades while the blade bolt is being removed or installed.
A strong cordless impact tool can be used to remove the blade bolts, however the proper blade bolt torque is 75 FTLBs dry torque.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that one. I messed up. I thought it was the same as the Tiger Cat. I was mistaken. Sorry.