Nice project! Anxious to follow this!

 

I love my 3150! It is a lot of work to get dialed in but it is worth it. I am sure I should be doing more to mine. I have replaced many parts on mine but have not been brave enough to replace the reels! Little jealous of you mine had 4K hours on it when I got it but it ran fairly well.

 

I love my 3150! It is a lot of work to get dialed in but it is worth it. I am sure I should be doing more to mine. I have replaced many parts on mine but have not been brave enough to replace the reels! Little jealous of you mine had 4K hours on it when I got it but it ran fairly well.

I probably should've waited to come across something in better shape, but I hadn't seen one and wanted to get one in time to go through it good before I had to use it, so I pulled the trigger on this one. I didn't plan on completely rebuilding the cutting units. I measured the diameter of the reels and called the guy I've used at a local country club and he said I probably had one, maybe two grinds left on the reels if there were no nicks/dings. I figured up the cost of having it ground, plus new bearings and seals, and it came out that new reels (which came with bearings and seals) were only going to be about $90 more per cutting unit so I just went that route.

 

Been a while since I've been able to update this. Murphy's Law kicked in... My mower is the 04358 (2012) model. I probably should've noticed it sooner, but the groomer shafts on the non-drive side were ruined. One of them was worn down about 0.020", and the other two way worse. I finally found out I have the 04709 groomers and of course, R&R doesn't have parts for that model so I had to go to Toro. I ordered the latest part# for the shafts according to the parts list and when they came in they were different from the shafts I had. After calling and talking to someone at Jerry Pate I found out that the shafts had been updated and instead of a $200 shaft now you have to buy a $550 "kit" that came with a new pulley. There was no way I was going to pay that kind of money so in a last ditch effort I ordered the shaft from the 04634 groomers to see if it matched the drive side shaft and sure enough it did. The non-drive side of the shaft was different, but it only had to be cut off to the right length for it to work.

Here's a pic of the"new" shaft (left) vs the original (right):


The 04634 groomer shaft (threaded) vs original on the RH (non-drive) side. I just used a cut off saw to cut it to the right length.


So I finally got the first cutting unit assembled, or did I... more to come

 

I went to screw in the ball studs for the pull links to connect to and the threads were all jacked up. That's when I realized what I had done. When I disassembled the front and rear rollers, I laid them all together, knocked all the seals and bearings out, cleaned them up and set aside. They all use the same shafts. So, when I went to assemble the rollers, I just randomly grabbed a shaft not thinking about the threads inside the shaft. The rear rollers didn't have anything threaded into the ends on the shaft and therefore were all rusted and gunked up. I hated prob and stats, but maybe someone who digs that stuff will calculate the probability of randomly selecting a roller and a shaft and choosing the "wrong" shaft every single time, bc that's exactly what happened. I looked at the other rollers and I randomly picked up the shaft that was in the rear roller and put it in the front roller when I installed the new bearings and seals. Sigh... So, I tried using a tap to clean the threads but it was a nightmare. I ended up getting a helicoil kit in 3/8-24 to repair the threads. I could've swapped all the shafts back around but I figured there was a good chance of ruining all 6 seals on one side of the shaft, plus the hassle of pressing all of them out and back in. I got the helicoil kit, drilled and tapped with no issues, put the insert in and went to install the ball stud and it wouldn't go in. After several minutes of looking and scratching my head, I realized the helicoil kit was packaged wrong from the factory. It contained 3/8"-16 tap and inserts instead of 3/8"-24. I was beyond frustrated. I had to order a 3/8-16" ball stud from McMaster Carr at a price of $15 plus shipping (all the other sizes were $3-4 max, go figure). It just came in today so I'm hoping it's going to work. I took the helicoil kit back to the store and it exchanged it for another 3/8-24". I checked first this time and the tap is the correct tap for the 3/8-24" inserts. However, I don't think the inserts are right. They're larger than 3/8-24. My best guess is they're metric. I've ordered some 3/8-24 inserts that should be here tomorrow and I will know for sure then (unless they're wrong too) :roll:

 

Subscribed.. I am thinking of getting a 2005ish 3150 with about 4,000 hours on it. My local Golf Course supply place has a bunch of them that have just been returned from a local course (I am told that this course was very good at doing the maintenance). They will do a quick run through on the one I pick and make sure everything is in good working order and grind the reels and bedknifes. It looked like most of them had 8 blade reels with lots of reel life left.

Cheers, and great project!

 

Subscribed.. I am thinking of getting a 2005ish 3150 with about 4,000 hours on it. My local Golf Course supply place has a bunch of them that have just been returned from a local course (I am told that this course was very good at doing the maintenance). They will do a quick run through on the one I pick and make sure everything is in good working order and grind the reels and bedknifes. It looked like most of them had 8 blade reels with lots of reel life left.

Cheers, and great project!

Thanks. It's been a while since I've updated the thread. I've got side tracked on a few other projects and still haven't finished. Hopefully after Christmas I'll be able to finish it up before moving on to my next project around the house. Good luck with picking one out and keep me posted on it.

 

Use a plug of appropriate size and run them in the holes to prevent the same situation from reoccurring in the future. Ordinary hex head cap screws will work unless you need it to be flush with the shaft end. Then I'd go for set screws and bit of blue LocTite.