How Dirty is Your Wheelhorse???

[leeave96 487]

When tearing my mighty 520H, I found the innards to be filthy with grass and dirt. I have a feeling the culprit of this was my 42 inch rear discharge deck.

My question is - how many of you are using a RD deck with a hydro and if not, how dirty and packed with grass do you find your tractor?

Thanks!

Bill

[855ownerJoel 32]

Wow, I have a rear discharge but I hose everything off after every mowing. That could cause some heat build up, not good.

[Tankman 3,515]

I seldom find dirt on any of my four WH garden tractors except during use.

After each use, usually, backed up to the barn, power washed (carefully), and blown dry with the Echo backpack blower before backing into their parking spaces in the barn. Takes 'bout five or ten minutes.

When I had rear discharge mowers, same cleanup.

Grease and/or oil are applied as needed. The Horses are well cared for in their old age. :-)

[tommy3horse 3]

I recently worked on my Dad's '75 C-160 hydro with a side discharge deck. I replaced one of the axel seals. I took it to the car wash just to be able to see the rearend.

Side, rear, does not seem to matter, I tend to wash them off with a hose after mowing just to keep the grass and leaf clippings out of the garage, with the side benefit of keeping the tractors somewhat clean.

Tom

[GlenPettit 1,714]

That blow-back is a problem with the 42" Rear Discharge decks. Wheel Horse used to offer a metal extension for that 42" RD deck as an option; what I did is to just add on a 2" rubber extension (4' kitchen black base molding, cut; $2) beyond the back of the deck, the holes are already in your deck for exactly that application. Just that short 2", with the curve down, eliminates 95% of what we used to get, and no problem with the "throw, lay" of the clippings.

Also, we use a blower on our air hose to blow-off most the dirt & dust, outside the barn, to keep the deck & mower dry. Note, that the carriage bolt heads are on the underside, with locknuts on top.

[ericj 1,576]

rear discharge deck almost require that you blow the tractor off after use in my opinion. i back my tractors up to the shed and use a blow gun off my air compressor and blow the tractor and decks off. my 1st deck was a 36" rear discharge deck and after several months of use the tool box on my c120 was full of grass so i started using my leaf blower to blow it till i finially got an air compressor

eric j

[nylyon-(Admin) 7,121]

I use a hand held leaf blower after every use and blow off the clippings on the entire thing. Every spring (although I should do it in the fall) I remove the access plates and clean it out really good. The other thing is that cam plate on the hydro itself. It needs to be removed (yes removed) to get all the debris out of there and the linkage. I hadn't done that and after a while the debris built up enough to actually make it go in reverse very slowly. Removed the plate, cleaned it out and it's back to full reverse (and forward as well).

My 414 has a SD deck on it and I get a lot of the clippings right onto the engine flywheel from the left corner of the deck. Why, I don't know but that doesn't happen with the RD which is good for the Onan.

[KC9KAS 4,741]

My 654 must be dirty......On Thanksgiving Day, the wifes great niece riding in the WH wagon was holding her nose because I had "dog poop" on my wheels! :crying-yellow:

[can whlvr 991]

when i got both my hydros they were so packed full of dirt and old oil that i could not see the cooling fins on the pumps,no wonder the sundstrand needed to be rebuilt

[squonk 38,940]

That blow-back is a problem with the 42" Rear Discharge decks. Wheel Horse used to offer a metal extension for that 42" RD deck as an option; what I did is to just add on a 2" rubber extension (4' kitchen black base molding, cut; $2) beyond the back of the deck, the holes are already in your deck for exactly that application. Just that short 2", with the curve down, eliminates 95% of what we used to get, and no problem with the "throw, lay" of the clippings.

Also, we use a blower on our air hose to blow-off most the dirt & dust, outside the barn, to keep the deck & mower dry. Note, that the carriage bolt heads are on the underside, with locknuts on top.

I did the same thing with the rubber flap. There used to be grass all over the hydro, now just a few clippings.

[AMC RULES 36,945]

Well...when you consider a few of the risque places I've captured my 653 lettin' it all hang out...

I'd say, this one's pretty dirty.

[Tankman 3,515]

Picked up my 414-8 for free! How come?

Knew someone, who knew someone who hadn' used the Horse for years. Coated with oil, and I do mean (black) coated! Every inch was caked, took some real power washin'! One might think, this Horse is black. Wasn't, was red under the heavy coating of oil spray.

Blown engine? Nope! The 14 hp Kohler Magnum oil dipstick bottom elbow was missing a screw, gasket was blown. New gasket and bolts. Replaced the plastic headlamp bezels. paint where needed. Coarse skateboard grip tape on the footrests. And, oh my, replaced the seat.

A fine runnin' Stallion! I chuckle but will never mention what I found to the previous owner. He wouldn't mind anyway.

[Wheel-N-It 2,967]

Thank you Glen for the hot tip regarding adding an extension for the rear discharge. That will be another of my Winter projects.

Also, thank you Bill for getting this thread started :)

[SousaKerry 500]

I used to hose down my C-175 after every mow with the 42" RD including getting up under the fenders and such, thought I was doing pretty good. The other day I was mounting the snow blower and had my head up underneath and noticed that the frame rails had a 1/2" of grass clippings on them still....I haven't mowed with this tractor in 4 years.

But I would say that removing panels and fender to wash it out once or twice a year with a RD deck is a must.