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Weird spindle design on a Commercial ZTR

#1

Nwatson99

Nwatson99

I am posting about this since I find this design very weird for commercial spindles and would like to know from some of your folks that has these type of spindles.

Good friend of mine owns a mowing business, well he was at a friends' house last night who was changing the blades on his commercial ZT and got involved helping him do his blades.
Well my friend calls me today just bs'ing and we got to talking a little about mowers and he explained to me how his friend changed the blades on his commercial mower, so my friend asked me; your JD is not like that to change the blades is it, I replied heck no.

Procedure explained to me by my friend:
Removed the foot access panel to the center of the deck, no spindle covers were on the machine I asked.
Then he jacked up his mower using the deck, just crammed a floor jack under it and once he achieved height, he then placed two jack stands also on the rim of the deck to keep the mower up.
Slipped out the floor jack
Placed a wrench on a nut on the top of his spindle, jamming it against the machine.
Laid down and zipped out this long bolt that went all the way through the spindle and pulled out a long bolt, blade, etc from underneath the deck
Removed the blade from the bolt, and zipped it right back in everything with my friend holding the wrench and starting the nut on the bolt.
Then they did the other two the same way.


Just for my curiosity I would like to learn more about these spindles so I can understand the design.
If a bolt goes all the way through the spindles, how good are the bearings and from engineering stand point this means there is a inner sleeve shaft in the spindle that the bolt slides through?
I have not seen spindles like this, why would a commercial company make or use spindles like this?
Who else has this and what are your thoughts on these spindles?
Is there a compression fitting from the long bolt to the inner sleeve?
Or am I just imagining a totally wrong design and can someone enlighten me on this?


#2

djdicetn

djdicetn

Nwatson99 said:
I am posting about this since I find this design very weird for commercial spindles and would like to know from some of your folks that has these type of spindles.

Good friend of mine owns a mowing business, well he was at a friends' house last night who was changing the blades on his commercial ZT and got involved helping him do his blades.
Well my friend calls me today just bs'ing and we got to talking a little about mowers and he explained to me how his friend changed the blades on his commercial mower, so my friend asked me; your JD is not like that to change the blades is it, I replied heck no.

Procedure explained to me by my friend:
Removed the foot access panel to the center of the deck, no spindle covers were on the machine I asked.
Then he jacked up his mower using the deck, just crammed a floor jack under it and once he achieved height, he then placed two jack stands also on the rim of the deck to keep the mower up.
Slipped out the floor jack
Placed a wrench on a nut on the top of his spindle, jamming it against the machine.
Laid down and zipped out this long bolt that went all the way through the spindle and pulled out a long bolt, blade, etc from underneath the deck
Removed the blade from the bolt, and zipped it right back in everything with my friend holding the wrench and starting the nut on the bolt.
Then they did the other two the same way.


Just for my curiosity I would like to learn more about these spindles so I can understand the design.
If a bolt goes all the way through the spindles, how good are the bearings and from engineering stand point this means there is a inner sleeve shaft in the spindle that the bolt slides through?
I have not seen spindles like this, why would a commercial company make or use spindles like this?
Who else has this and what are your thoughts on these spindles?
Is there a compression fitting from the long bolt to the inner sleeve?
Or am I just imagining a totally wrong design and can someone enlighten me on this?
Click to expand...

User Mad Mackie could enlighten you on that spindle design....I'm 99.9% sure you are talking about a Scag Commercial ZTR. I don't know any details to answer any of your question but I do know they are kind of a pain to remove/replace the blades but are VERY high-quality spindles.


#3

Fish

Fish

My old 1980 Bunton Walk behind used spindles like that, well made, easy to swap blades, great design.


#4

Fish

Fish

Bunton PAL0806A Spindle Assembly 1985145 PAL0806A | eBay

Here is one like it.


#5

Fish

Fish

Actually, I have seen them on several brands, but I think that they are phasing them out, as the owner rarely has to buy
expensive replacement parts.......


#6

Av8r

Av8r

My Ferris isn't like that, but my buddies scag is. I like the design and would be happy with it


#7

Fish

Fish

Yeah, it is a great idea. The "shaft" is just a standard bolt, and if you hit anything, the blade will slip/spin, and the only thing that would/could bend was the blade. Rare to replace much of anything on the spindle.


#8

Carscw

Carscw

My snapper pro has them. Very easy and fast to change the blades.
And as fish said when you hit something the blade will slip and not bust a spindle.

Most mowers that use this setup will have spacers so you can change the blade height. You can have the blade sit high in the deck or down low at the edge of the deck.


#9

exotion

exotion

Every ztr I've ever used and worked on has this design. Makes for longer lasting spindle. The other type is just a bolt into the spindle like my Murray tractor has seems like a design to fail kind of thing but hey you pay more for quality


#10

Nwatson99

Nwatson99

Thanks guys, I looked them up and looked at the link that fish put up.
I just don't understand the design of the long pain in the butt bolt when they could have accomplished the same thing with a simple redesigned shaft for easier one hand blade change under the deck like most others and that would have made the customers happier.


#11

K

kwak

I have a Scag and once you change the blades a few times it isn't that bad. One thing I like is that if your threads get messed up you just go buy a new nut/bolt and be on your way, you dont have to worry about having to fix/replace the spindle.


#12

Nwatson99

Nwatson99

kwak said:
I have a Scag and once you change the blades a few times it isn't that bad. One thing I like is that if your threads get messed up you just go buy a new nut/bolt and be on your way, you dont have to worry about having to fix/replace the spindle.
Click to expand...

Yes that is the only benefit I see with a nut on the top of the spindles and some threads exposed, but if the threads are not exposed it reduces the risk of threads getting messed up pretty much to operator error only though.
Through bolt is design is really nice on a lot of applications and since you have these spindles, how much of the threads are exposed past the nut?


#13

Carscw

Carscw

The original design of this spindle was so you could adjust the where the blades sit in the deck.

On my snapper you adjust the cutting height with one inch spacers on the front wheels. If you want to go up or down a half inch you use the spacers on the blades.
I run my blades a half inch above the lip of the deck.

By moving where the blade sits in the deck changes how it cuts.

If you want to stripe you can put the blade up higher in the deck.


#14

K

kwak

Nwatson99 said:
Yes that is the only benefit I see with a nut on the top of the spindles and some threads exposed, but if the threads are not exposed it reduces the risk of threads getting messed up pretty much to operator error only though.
Through bolt is design is really nice on a lot of applications and since you have these spindles, how much of the threads are exposed past the nut?
Click to expand...
The bolt is flush with the top of the nut so there are no threads exposed. I do think it is very important to make sure the nuts/bolts are torqued properly with this design.


#15

exotion

exotion

We used to not really torque :/ we put them on tight and never had a problem. No you don't want them loose, but that's why you feed the bolt through the bottom if its loose your going to mess up your bolt but not throw a blade. It is really a heavy duty design


#16

Carscw

Carscw

I put them very tight with a breaker bar.

I think every mower should have this set up. Everything just last so much longer.


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