[MasterMech]

🤬



Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that....



Busted the reel to idler cog belt.



I didn't even actually hit the cast iron meter cover! As you can see, it's sunk into the ground pretty far but somehow I managed to bounce the corner of the bedknife off the cover, bending it up into the reel.



Busted weld on the reel.

So, looks like I may be doing a Jacobsen rebuild thread soon........ :|

 

[Ware]

Ouch. MQ busted his stuff up this weekend too. I better leave mine in the garage until this storm passes.

 

[g-man]

Wow, it busted the weld too. That's some serious momentum.

 

[Colonel K0rn]

Dang, so many people breaking reels early on this season with curbs and driveways and now a water meter box. I'm wondering, did you have your catcher on, or not? I'd like to think that having my catcher on keeps me from hitting some objects in my lawn.

 

[J_nick]

Ouch. MQ busted his stuff up this weekend too. I better leave mine in the garage until this storm passes.

@fp_911 dinged his on some concrete too. It's been a bad year for reels so far.

 

[Greendoc]

I depend on 1 GM 1000 to do all of my mowing. Hard objects of any kind in or near the lawn are avoided, mowed around. Sure, it is a PITA do to more trimming, but replacement blades for the Landscape Blade are cheap and my Maruyama distributor normally has them around. A Toro reel and bedknife is a lot more, there is no guarantee that the Toro distributor has them around, R&R products does, but if I order on Monday, it might be Wednesday or Thursday before it gets here. In other words, I do not run my mower over anything other than irrigation pop ups in the lawn and if those are not set correctly, I avoid those as well.

 

[Mightyquinn]

🤬



Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that....

That's exactly how mine looked too!!

 

[MasterMech]

I just totaled up the replacement parts.

Let's just say I'm close enough to R&R's free shipping threshold to make me consider picking up a tool of some sort. They want $70 to ship my order as is. :shock:

 

[Greendoc]

Their $500 order ships free is only for the middle 48 states. Let's just say I do not make a habit of bending or breaking reels and bedknives.

Bedknife and reel to Hawaii is over $100. At that point, it is worth it for me to fill up the rest of the box with wetting agent pellets or whatever else. I do use wetting agent pellets on lawns that are struggling with windy and dry conditions.

 

[Mightyquinn]

I just totaled up the replacement parts.

Let's just say I'm close enough to R&R's free shipping threshold to make me consider picking up a tool of some sort. They want $70 to ship my order as is. :shock:

I'm going tomorrow to order my parts for the Baroness and I'm sure it will be well over what you spent That's the one down side to owning a Baroness is that you can't get parts from R&R

Depending on how far you are from Free Shipping I would go ahead and order some other things like a Leveling Rake as you would essentially be getting $70 off since shipping would be free :thumbup:

 

[MasterMech]

I just totaled up the replacement parts.

Let's just say I'm close enough to R&R's free shipping threshold to make me consider picking up a tool of some sort. They want $70 to ship my order as is. :shock:

I'm going tomorrow to order my parts for the Baroness and I'm sure it will be well over what you spent That's the one down side to owning a Baroness is that you can't get parts from R&R

Depending on how far you are from Free Shipping I would go ahead and order some other things like a Leveling Rake as you would essentially be getting $70 off since shipping would be free :thumbup:

Yup. Kinda want a nice HoC gauge, but I don't really like R&R's version compared to an AccuGauge.

I need a drag mat for some upcoming aeration work but those are overpriced too, hmmm, decisions, decisions!

 

[MasterMech]

Parts are in-house..... now to find the time!

 

[g-man]

It's 10:30pm, you have the next 12hrs to pull an all nighter and be mowing in the am.

 

[MasterMech]

It's 10:30pm, you have the next 12hrs to pull an all nighter and be mowing in the am.

It's the kind of stunt I'd pull for sure! Just did an all-nighter last weekend for the day job. I'll likely be mowing this weekend, but I think it's going to be Sunday.

 

[MasterMech]

So I'm diving in here. I can work on it here and there this weekend so this is going to come in bits and pieces. Feel free to ask for more detail as we go, I'll try to explain or add pics.


Side cover is off, make sure you back out the Allen head set screws for the drive engagement levers.

Here's the roller drive set.



This as a side note, the roller brackets are a classic weakness on these machines, when cutting at the upper end of the HoC range. With the tall brackets, anything over .750" and you risk breaking the supports like this picture.



Buy the R & R replacement to solve the problem. Don't forget paint!

 

[MasterMech]

Now loosen the bedknife adjustment screws to prepare for removing the bedshoe and knife assembly.


Once the adjusters are loose, you can remove the bedshoe assembly now, by removing the pivot bolts. OR, you can leave it assembled to the reel assembly and remove the whole cutting unit. For my purposes, I'm going to remove the entire unit as an assembly and move it to the workbench. But here are the pivot bolts.

 

[MasterMech]

To remove the drive belts, I'll need to loosen the drive clutch jackshaft tensioner. Here it is from the backside.


If you want to go one more step and replace the roller drive belt, the jackshaft needs to come out. The clamp bolt is usually hard to see and covered in schmoo.



Once the jackshaft is out, the belts literally fall off and you have great access to clean up the belt residue. Don't lose the thrust washers or mix up the order of the parts for the jackshaft assembly. I'll keep it all together until I'm ready to clean and re-assemble We're almost there, all we need to do is remove the reel drive belt.

 

[MasterMech]

Oops, my bad! Gotta pull the reel clutch before you can access the bolts to pull the cutting unit off the frame.

Jakes have a special bolt that holds the spring and a zerk fitting. You'll have to jam a wrench in between the spring coils to get it apart.



Now the sleeve, and both keys will slide off.


And now the belt pulley will slide off exposing the bolts to remove the cutting unit.

 

[MasterMech]

Now to remove the cutting unit. I'll pull the 1 1/16" nut off the reel axle before removing the three screws that hold the housing in place.



If need be, you can re-install two of these screws into the threaded holes on the bushing to push it out of the bearing housing. If it's really stuck, I'd recommend not using the original screws, any 1/4-20 screw will do.



Now we can pull the three Allen head screws from the bearing housing on both sides of the reel.



And finally the remaining two hex head bolts on either side.



Now the complete unit will drop out of the frame. Now if only I had any room on the bench....

 

[MasterMech]

Ok, back at her here now that the kiddos are in bed and I've cleared some bench space. I'll start by freeing the drive side bearing housing from the bedshoe and then flip her 'round.



Well that was easy, may as well flip 'er now and remove the other housing and the bedshoe.



With the shoe off, we notice that I busted on screw completely and bent a second. Talk about a hard landing.



Let's set the bedshoe assembly aside for now. We'll come back to it soon enough.

All that's left to separate the reel fro the right side bearing housing is to remove this threaded nut.



Slide the housing off and don't lose the spring or the bearing inside..... and that's it. The reel is now scrap metal.