5-1010 mower deck problem

[mackinawdave 0]

:thumbs2: I am a Wheel Horse newbie this summer and am having trouble tuning up my mower deck. Its a 1974 5-1010 SD deck mounted on a 1972 charger 10 Automatic. The three blade alignment is not very good. All three blade heights are different plus it leaves a strip of grass between two of the blades. The worst is the left blade @ 1/4 inch shorter than the middle blade, plus there is 3/8 gap between those two blades. I cross checked by switching multiple combinations of six blades and came up with these consistent results. Is it possible that the wrong spindle housing has been installed? Or perhaps a non OEM replacement housing was installed and the specs are that far off? Can shims be used between the deck and spindle housing to adjust the spindle height? Are the mounting holes oblong so that a spindle can be adusted left or right? Or is this a good as a 5-1010 deck will get? Thanks for your input and help, mackinawdave

[mackinawdave 0]

:thumbs2: I am surprised no one has any suggestions for correcting this? Or at least tell me this is as good as the decks are?

[bo dawg 536]

:ychain: mackinawdave. I think some of the guys missed this one or they would have responded. As to your question with shimming the spindles, I wouldn't do that, you can add spacers/washers of diferent thicknesses under the blades to even them up. This could also be the problem and there's spacers in the wrong place. Take the blades off and look to see if there's any washers on the spindles.

Now someone could have replaced a spindle with a wrong one but if they all 3 look the same and measure the same it should be ok. There should be a gap between the blades so they wont hit as they spin, most of these decks will leave a thin strip of grass at times and usually on corners. Make sure you have the shrowd at the back side of the blades, this helps with creating vacume pulling the grass up so to get wacked! Also if there's too much grass build up can cause a bad cut. I've seen some people mow with these decks like plows, you might also look to see if previous owner has done any welding around any spindle area which could cause a spindle not to set level, or bent from damage.

There's a lot of reasons some of these decks don't cut right, you just have to go through the basics untill you find it.

I'm also working on mine right now trying to even up the cut it makes.

Good luck, and let us know what you find.

:thumbs:

[WheelHorse_of_course 100]

Hello Dave

You might look at the comments (link below) in Bo Dawg's thread as there is some good ideas on what to check.

Deck adjustment and measurments

Best of luck, and welcome

:thumbs2: