Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

I'm going through mowing deck bearings in probably less than 100 hours of mowing time in my RM48 deck. I rebuilt the deck with new blades, new belts (drive and internal), steel spindles (with grease fittings), new Ingersoll bearings, new bearing spacers, new bearing dust shields and new hardware. I don't know off hand if I replaced the top spindle spacer (page 16 item #9 in the 8-3073 parts manual, part number C29431). I also replaced the idler pulley and pivot spacer for the idler bracket. Bearings were inserted gently using a socket approximately the same outer diameter as the bearings and tapping gently with a 5lb hammer. Spindles greased with my grease gun. This lasted me two mowing seasons.

When I pulled out the deck which had been stored in my garage over the winter (spring 2020), the center spindle was seized. I was able to break it loose and it made a horrible grinding noise afterwards. I just assumed water had gotten in the bearings and rusted since I hosed the deck off and stored it. I ended up replacing all six spindle bearings with new Ingersoll bearings. I also replaced the the center spindle assembly with a new one from an RM38 deck (slightly faster blade tip speed). My old RM48 center spindle was shot and chewing up belts. I also replaced the belts. The last part giving me trouble is the pivot spacer for the belt tensioner (page 13 #21 PN: C14768). I grease this pivot spacer seasonally and it always seems to wear out and seize to the washer under the tensioner bracket. Toward the end of 2020 mowing season I thought the deck was slowly getting louder. I typically mow with my hydravac and 3M ear protection.

So hear we are in 2021. This spring the idler bracket pivot bushing was again seized to the washer below. This time I drilled out the bracket hole and installed a larger new bushing left over from the mule drive rebuild (2016). The bearings in my mowing deck seem to slowly keep getting louder. Last week I mowed without the hydravac and I could definitely hear the issue without the added hydravac noise. I pulled off the belts and the chute side bearings were quite noisy. This weekend I replaced both bearings in the chute side spindle with a pair of good tight bearings I saved from last springs rebuild. I greased all spindles, installed new bolts/lock washers all torqued to 35ft-lbs, and sharpened all blades. Blade balance seems good. The center spindle bearings are starting to make a little noise but not too loud. The idler pulley bearings are also starting to make some noise (bearing seems a little loose). The deck is much quieter now.

I'm tired of rebuilding this deck. I've got maybe 175 hours on it at this point. Am I doing something wrong?

That must be frustrating. I personally don't have any experience with this as I mow very little and never replaced the bearings that my two decks came with. I don't think that the occasional hosing would be the culprit though. It should be hard for water to get in from just hosing the deck off. Now if you use a pressure washer, that's a different story.

Does the original bearing have a proper seal behind that metal side cover?

Eugen wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:57 am That must be frustrating. I personally don't have any experience with this as I mow very little and never replaced the bearings that my two decks came with. I don't think that the occasional hosing would be the culprit though. It should be hard for water to get in from just hosing the deck off. Now if you use a pressure washer, that's a different story.

Does the original bearing have a proper seal behind that metal side cover?

No pressure washing the deck...

Never thought of taking the bearings to see if the internal seals are intact. I did read on the old forum that it might be possible to blow the seals out with pressure created by the grease gun.

What are you guys using for a grease and grease gun?

I don't have a good answer for you, Matt. Bad luck? Don't build them like they use to?

Unless the dealership changed them in my AHRM48 years ago under the TOP warranty program, I'm pretty sure mine are the original ones. Probably pushing 1000 hours, not noisy.

I give mine a couple of pumps of a red moly lith high speed grease when I change/sharpen blades.

I have an expensive bearing in my drill rig that's less than a year old that's failing. It's probably going to take three days to change it out. The old one was 45 years old. Wasn't crazy noisy but while I was rebuilding the shaft we replaced everything. The old one would have outlasted me, should have left it I guess.
I feel your frustration.
Tim

Matt,
I have yet to see a spindle housing that is sealed tight, let enough tight enough to blow a seal from a bearing.


Gordy

MattA wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:50 pm
No pressure washing the deck...

Never thought of taking the bearings to see if the internal seals are intact. I did read on the old forum that it might be possible to blow the seals out with pressure created by the grease gun.

What are you guys using for a grease and grease gun?

I don't think mine has zerks so no extra grease from me those bearings gotta survive on their own or not at all.

I'm really tempted to order the cheapest bearings with just 2RST seal I can find. If I'm going to change them often anyway...

The original Ingersoll packaged I bought said Fafnir on them (Timken). I recall the 2nd set of Ingersoll packaged bearings I bought were marked "China".

I changed the chute side spindle bearings without removing the deck. Quick and easy. Front of the tractor was up on ramps with the ramp pointed away from the tractor (I jacked the tractor up and slid the ramps under the front tires).

Eugen wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:45 pm I don't think mine has zerks so no extra grease from me those bearings gotta survive on their own or not at all.

I'm really tempted to order the cheapest bearings with just 2RST seal I can find. If I'm going to change them often anyway...

Not all steel spindles had grease fittings. Hopefully you don't have the aluminum spindles.
You can still grease your spindles manually with the spindle shafts out. I haven't had to try this but should work in theory.

I've sharpened my blades several times this year to get better cutting performance. I found I wasn't making the blades sharp enough and the tips of my grass blades sometimes looked slightly torn and frayed. I ended up doing some research to find out the ideal blade sharpening angle is about 30° and I failed at finding an inexpensive tool to measure the blade sharpened angle.

I ended up measuring a new blade I had laying around with a caliper and doing some trigonometry. The blade thickness was 0.200” and the length of the sharpened edge was about 0.340”. Taking the inverse sine of 200/340 comes up with 36°. No need to have a scientific calculator, you can put “inverse sine (200/340) in degrees” into googles search function and it will spit out 36°. If you wanted to target 30°, the length of the sharpened edge needs to be increased to 0.400”.

Balancing the RM series blades requires a bit of guess work with one of those $7 plastic balancers due to the blade having a “DD” mounting hole instead of a round hole. You have to guess at the center of the DD hole. I searched the internet for a while to find a blade adapter that I once saw posted on the old forum. I bought the adapter and it does not fit on my $7 plastic balancer. The hole size is something odd like 0.560”. To make matters worse, the adapter does not fit in my blades DD hole (new or used blades) The adapter is a few thousandths larger than the blade hole.

Link to RM series blade adapter:
https://www.magna-matic-direct.com/prod ... tsman.html

Anyways I've got my blades balanced and sharpened to 30°. Not sure its going to make much of a difference. I'll have to wait for this weekend to try out the sharpened blades and quieter bearings.

Not all steel spindles had grease fittings. Hopefully you don't have the aluminum spindles.
You can still grease your spindles manually with the spindle shafts out. I haven't had to try this but should work in theory.

That sounds like a PITA, it is so easy to drill and tap a hole and screw in a zerk.


Gordy

Gordy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 10:08 pm

Not all steel spindles had grease fittings. Hopefully you don't have the aluminum spindles.
You can still grease your spindles manually with the spindle shafts out. I haven't had to try this but should work in theory.

That sounds like a PITA, it is so easy to drill and tap a hole and screw in a zerk.


Gordy

Good idea Gordy

MattA wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:59 pm I've sharpened my blades several times this year to get better cutting performance. I found I wasn't making the blades sharp enough and the tips of my grass blades sometimes looked slightly torn and frayed. I ended up doing some research to find out the ideal blade sharpening angle is about 30° and I failed at finding an inexpensive tool to measure the blade sharpened angle.

I ended up measuring a new blade I had laying around with a caliper and doing some trigonometry. The blade thickness was 0.200” and the length of the sharpened edge was about 0.340”. Taking the inverse sine of 200/340 comes up with 36°. No need to have a scientific calculator, you can put “inverse sine (200/340) in degrees” into googles search function and it will spit out 36°. If you wanted to target 30°, the length of the sharpened edge needs to be increased to 0.400”.

Balancing the RM series blades requires a bit of guess work with one of those $7 plastic balancers due to the blade having a “DD” mounting hole instead of a round hole. You have to guess at the center of the DD hole. I searched the internet for a while to find a blade adapter that I once saw posted on the old forum. I bought the adapter and it does not fit on my $7 plastic balancer. The hole size is something odd like 0.560”. To make matters worse, the adapter does not fit in my blades DD hole (new or used blades) The adapter is a few thousandths larger than the blade hole.

Link to RM series blade adapter:
https://www.magna-matic-direct.com/prod ... tsman.html

Anyways I've got my blades balanced and sharpened to 30°. Not sure its going to make much of a difference. I'll have to wait for this weekend to try out the sharpened blades and quieter bearings.

Matt, I got one of these, albeit old but good enough for angle measurement.

https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Protra ... B0748DV44L

But trigonometry works too!

About balancing the DD blade, why not drill a small hole in the middle, right above the DD hole, good enough for balancing the blade on a thin nail?

Gordy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 10:08 pm

Not all steel spindles had grease fittings. Hopefully you don't have the aluminum spindles.
You can still grease your spindles manually with the spindle shafts out. I haven't had to try this but should work in theory.

That sounds like a PITA, it is so easy to drill and tap a hole and screw in a zerk.


Gordy

Gordy, good idea! I will do that.

By the way guys, I found an old Z9504 bearing in my junk box and took off the metal shield. It does have a soft plastic seal on the inner side. There is no seal on the outer side. I suppose water can easily get in?

Any other thoughts guys? Maybe having a bumpy lawn accelerates the bearing wear?

I'll be cutting up to about 6" off the lawn today before the hurricane. I'm hoping the deck is good and quiet again.

Matt, could it be that you just got a bad batch of bearings? I used to be into photo cameras, the mechanical type. After the war the Russians loaded up the full Zeiss Ikon factory onto trains and were making copies of German cameras and lenses. They even got some of the engineers. So the tools and knowledge were the same. Some lenses I got were stellar, but most were duds. Quality was not consistent.

So maybe the same applies to these bearings. I know that some bearings don't come packed with enough grease. The problem with the Z9504 is that you can't take the metal shield off to repack them. This is also another reason for me to switch to the 6204-2RS bearings, I should be able to repack them. Maybe it's worth considering taking the shield off on the inner side of the housing so you can pack them with grease. There's a whole thread about this on the old site.

MattA wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:59 pm I've sharpened my blades several times this year to get better cutting performance. I found I wasn't making the blades sharp enough and the tips of my grass blades sometimes looked slightly torn and frayed. I ended up doing some research to find out the ideal blade sharpening angle is about 30° and I failed at finding an inexpensive tool to measure the blade sharpened angle.

I ended up measuring a new blade I had laying around with a caliper and doing some trigonometry. The blade thickness was 0.200” and the length of the sharpened edge was about 0.340”. Taking the inverse sine of 200/340 comes up with 36°. No need to have a scientific calculator, you can put “inverse sine (200/340) in degrees” into googles search function and it will spit out 36°. If you wanted to target 30°, the length of the sharpened edge needs to be increased to 0.400”.

Balancing the RM series blades requires a bit of guess work with one of those $7 plastic balancers due to the blade having a “DD” mounting hole instead of a round hole. You have to guess at the center of the DD hole. I searched the internet for a while to find a blade adapter that I once saw posted on the old forum. I bought the adapter and it does not fit on my $7 plastic balancer. The hole size is something odd like 0.560”. To make matters worse, the adapter does not fit in my blades DD hole (new or used blades) The adapter is a few thousandths larger than the blade hole.

Link to RM series blade adapter:
https://www.magna-matic-direct.com/prod ... tsman.html

Anyways I've got my blades balanced and sharpened to 30°. Not sure it's going to make much of a difference. I'll have to wait for this weekend to try out the sharpened blades and quieter bearings.

A properly maintained deck should only make the sound from the air movement and you should then hear only the grass getting hit by the blades. Most mower decks are not this quiet because the bearings very slowly get louder, most of the time until you realize it is loud, maybe. Turning the deck on and off should be nearly no difference in the loudness of the running tractor.

You may be overdoing it on the grease. Personally, I hate it when the spindles are greased. It just makes a mess and often the grease is contaminated to the point if it did actually get forced into the bearing it would kill the bearing. Applying a thin layer on the spindles during assembly is all that is required.

Your adapter is the best, correct almost, one from Magna-Matic. Use a file to get it to fit. If you just give it a little shave it will fit the blades.

The only time I powerwash any implement with bearings is just before teardown to replace the bearings. Once you powerwash these things you have risked your bearings. The sealed bearings are dust seals. The seals are not for standing water let alone pressurized water.

ssmewing wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:59 am

MattA wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 9:59 pm I've sharpened my blades several times this year to get better cutting performance. I found I wasn't making the blades sharp enough and the tips of my grass blades sometimes looked slightly torn and frayed. I ended up doing some research to find out the ideal blade sharpening angle is about 30° and I failed at finding an inexpensive tool to measure the blade sharpened angle.

I ended up measuring a new blade I had laying around with a caliper and doing some trigonometry. The blade thickness was 0.200” and the length of the sharpened edge was about 0.340”. Taking the inverse sine of 200/340 comes up with 36°. No need to have a scientific calculator, you can put “inverse sine (200/340) in degrees” into googles search function and it will spit out 36°. If you wanted to target 30°, the length of the sharpened edge needs to be increased to 0.400”.

Balancing the RM series blades requires a bit of guess work with one of those $7 plastic balancers due to the blade having a “DD” mounting hole instead of a round hole. You have to guess at the center of the DD hole. I searched the internet for a while to find a blade adapter that I once saw posted on the old forum. I bought the adapter and it does not fit on my $7 plastic balancer. The hole size is something odd like 0.560”. To make matters worse, the adapter does not fit in my blades DD hole (new or used blades) The adapter is a few thousandths larger than the blade hole.

Link to RM series blade adapter:
https://www.magna-matic-direct.com/prod ... tsman.html

Anyways I've got my blades balanced and sharpened to 30°. Not sure it's going to make much of a difference. I'll have to wait for this weekend to try out the sharpened blades and quieter bearings.

A properly maintained deck should only make the sound from the air movement and you should then hear only the grass getting hit by the blades. Most mower decks are not this quiet because the bearings very slowly get louder, most of the time until you realize it is loud, maybe. Turning the deck on and off should be nearly no difference in the loudness of the running tractor.

You may be overdoing it on the grease. Personally, I hate it when the spindles are greased. It just makes a mess and often the grease is contaminated to the point if it did actually get forced into the bearing it would kill the bearing. Applying a thin layer on the spindles during assembly is all that is required.

Your adapter is the best, correct almost, one from Magna-Matic. Use a file to get it to fit. If you just give it a little shave it will fit the blades.

The only time I powerwash any implement with bearings is just before teardown to replace the bearings. Once you powerwash these things you have risked your bearings. The sealed bearings are dust seals. The seals are not for standing water let alone pressurized water.

The deck cut really nice this past Saturday evening. That specific bearing noise I targeted is gone but the deck is still loud with my 3M ear protection on. The deck makes this droning sound which I've always assumed is the blades drifting in and out of sync with each other. At some point I will get some new bearings ordered from Bob and replace them all again.

I do plan to adjust the Magna-Matic adapter at some point. Project time is limited with a 3 month old + a 2.5 year old at home.

No power washer here...

You may be overdoing it on the grease. Personally, I hate it when the spindles are greased. It just makes a mess and often the grease is contaminated to the point if it did actually get forced into the bearing it would kill the bearing. Applying a thin layer on the spindles during assembly is all that is required.

I respectfully disagree The grease is not to lubricate, it is to displace air, that with heating and cooling brings moisture into the spindle housing. I have replaced many spindle bearings, where I found rusty water on top of the bottom bearing. Care to guess which bearing was always bad Dad got me started installing zerks on spindle housings Looong ago. We went from 1.5-2 years on the bearing changes to 5-6 years. For me it is well worth the mess


Gordy

Gordy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:53 pm

You may be overdoing it on the grease. Personally, I hate it when the spindles are greased. It just makes a mess and often the grease is contaminated to the point if it did actually get forced into the bearing it would kill the bearing. Applying a thin layer on the spindles during assembly is all that is required.

I respectfully disagree The grease is not to lubricate, it is to displace air, that with heating and cooling brings moisture into the spindle housing. I have replaced many spindle bearings, where I found rusty water on top of the bottom bearing. Care to guess which bearing was always bad Dad got me started installing zerks on spindle housings Looong ago. We went from 1.5-2 years on the bearing changes to 5-6 years. For me it is well worth the mess


Gordy

The subject has had a fair amount of debate over the years. And, that means there are different points of view on the subject. I just mainly dislike the mess when they are filled with grease. I am more neutral on whether there is a compelling reason to do it.

The larger topic is the bearing quality. With so much crap being made in China and then sold as being good quality, but it is not, it is hard to navigate.

On bearing quality, my point about using a different size bearing (like the 6204) is that one would have a lot more options for quality bearings.

Also, should the deck use C3 bearings? I'm inclined to say yes, the spindle assembly must get hot when used. C1 bearings will not allow for enough expansion when hot, thus wearing much much faster. I think @Spike188 said he only installs C3 bearings in his decks.

Matt , do you know what bearings you installed, C1 or C3?

Not familiar with the C1 or C3 rating. I just put in what the dealer sold me.


Gordy

I am also not knowledgeable regarding C1/C3, could you expound?

The suppliers that I use do reference EMQ quality bearings which we supply for the mechanical pto clutches, EMQ stands for "electric motor quality"

Bob

myerslawnandgarden wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:35 pm I am also not knowledgeable regarding C1/C3, could you expound?

The suppliers that I use do reference EMQ quality bearings which we supply for the mechanical pto clutches, EMQ stands for "electric motor quality"

Bob

Here's a good article on this. It's about ceramic bearings but it applied equally to steel bearings. So the Cx is a specification, and not an indication of quality which would be more about production tolerances or deviation from them and materials used.

From the article:

The suffixes C0 through C4 in a bearing part number refer to a bearing’s internal clearance value and have to do with what’s called “radial play”. Radial play is the radial internal clearance between the balls and races, and is the measured value of the total movement of one ring with respect to the other in a plane perpendicular to the bearing axis. Radial play can also be referred to as“internal clearance”.

The following is a list of bearing clearance values and what they mean:

C0 – Referred to as “standard clearance”. Normally, there are no markings on a bearing with a C0 clearance value.
C2 – Refers to a “less than standard clearance”. Bearings with this type of clearance are uncommon and have very limited uses.
C3 – Refers to a “greater than standard clearance”. This is the most common type of bearing, and is the correct choice for the majority of applications.
C4 – Refers to “greater than C3 clearance”. Not as common as C3, but often specified in small engine crankshaft bearings.
In any bearing, including ceramic hybrid ball bearings, some internal clearance is necessary to the ensure that the bearing turns freely, without binding. But note that these clearance values are very small. For example, a 25mm bearing with a “standard fit” will have an internal clearance of about a half a thousandth of an inch. The same bearing with a C3 fit will have about one thousandth of an inch clearance. This value is less than the diameter of a human hair! Internal clearances are also relative to the bearing’s bore size (the amount of radial play will increase as the bore size increases).

The radial play for a given bore size is not an exact value, but a range. For example, a 6205 C3 bearing (25mm bore) has a radial play value that falls between .0006” and .0010”. The same bearing in a C4 clearance has a clearance range of .0011” to .0015”. In a properly assembled bearing, the clearance will generally fall in the middle of the tolerance range.

A small amount of extra clearance is usually not a problem, but any amount of negative clearance (interference) can be a big problem, resulting in increased friction, heat, and ultimately in early fatigue failure. Therefore, it is always better to err on the side of a bearing that is a little loose, rather than one that is a little tight. It is also important to note that the radial clearance value that matters most is that when the bearing is installed and up to operating temperature.

When I went through my deck for my 646 rear mower. I had to put some new bearing in the spindle hubs. I popped out a seal on one side of each bearing and with a needle grease gun fitting lubed them up before putting the seal back on. If the bearings are sealed putting grease in the zerk fitting would do no good because the grease would never get into the bearings.

Keep the Peace
Harry

When I went through my deck for my 646 rear mower. I had to put some new bearing in the spindle hubs. I popped out a seal on one side of each bearing and with a needle grease gun fitting lubed them up before putting the seal back on. If the bearings are sealed putting grease in the zerk fitting would do no good because the grease would never get into the bearings.

Keep the Peace
Harry

Eugen - The original bearings I installed are marked FAFNIR 204RR6 C1. The second set are marked Z9504AB.

The Fafnir 204RR6 is the original factory installed bearing, the Z9504AB is dimensionally the same but a lower quality bearing. I stock the Z9504AB for a price point bearing but always recommend the 204RR6 if customers are not shopping price. We get $5.58 ea. for the 204RR6.

Bob

I finally got my deck off today and cleaned up about a month behind schedule. The top center spindle bearing was shot and the top left was a little noisy. I replaced them both with some Fafnir 204RR6 bearings I had saved from a previous rebuild. Nice and quiet now. Earlier this fall I replaced both right side spindle bearings. I'll probably get a full set of Fafnir 204RR6 bearings on order from Bob for the next rebuild.

MattA wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:02 pm I finally got my deck off today and cleaned up about a month behind schedule. The top center spindle bearing was shot and the top left was a little noisy. I replaced them both with some Fafnir 204RR6 bearings I had saved from a previous rebuild. Nice and quiet now. Earlier this fall I replaced both right side spindle bearings. I'll probably get a full set of Fafnir 204RR6 bearings on order from Bob for the next rebuild.

How old was the shot one Matt?

Eugen wrote: ↑Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:39 pm

MattA wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:02 pm I finally got my deck off today and cleaned up about a month behind schedule. The top center spindle bearing was shot and the top left was a little noisy. I replaced them both with some Fafnir 204RR6 bearings I had saved from a previous rebuild. Nice and quiet now. Earlier this fall I replaced both right side spindle bearings. I'll probably get a full set of Fafnir 204RR6 bearings on order from Bob for the next rebuild.

How old was the shot one Matt?

I replaced all 6 spindle bearings at the start of the 2020 mowing season. The bearings were around 2 years old when I replaced them. I replaced them because the center spindle bearings had seized up over the winter while stored in my garage. I also replaced the center spindle at that time.

So basically they were fine for two seasons. Hm... I don't mow nearly as much as you guys, so I might be fine for 5 seasons. We'll see.

My RM48 deck seemed louder recently so I did some investigation and found one of my idler pulleys had a lot of play in the bearings and was noisy when I spun it so I replaced it. Haven't mowed the lawn yet but I hope the deck is quieter.

I've also had an issue with a droning noise my deck makes since I bought it and rebuilt it 5 years ago. The noise gets louder and quieter as if the blades are shifting in and out of sync with each other. I took off the drive belt and marked all the spindle pulleys front and center. Next I began rotating the center drive pulley and within 10 revolutions I could see which spindle pulley was the issue. My chute side spindle pulley is 90° ahead of the other two spindles after just 26 rotations of the center spindle pulley. Approximately every second, the blade is 180° ahead which I think helps explain the droning noise that gets louder and softer about every second. I swapped out the spindle pulley for another one I had and this one has the same problem only it takes 40 revolutions to get 90° ahead. My inboard spindle pulley stays in sync with no load but I can make it slip by hand. At this point the two outer spindle pulleys are the only parts I have not replaced in the past 5 years. Maybe @myerslawnandgarden will cut me a deal on a pair of new C31566 spindle pulleys?

Rooting for you @MattA !

I mowed my lawn Friday and the deck is still loud. The frequency which the droning noise gets louder and softer is now lower with the different spindle installed.

I might spend some time researching mulching blades that would be compatible or easily modified to work with the old case style spindles. Might as well go that route if I'm buying two spindles.