The Truth About Mower Spindles

My 1st set of Bad Boy spindles didn't last but 3 years so I did this to mine and I'm going on 7 years.

I worked at a mower shop/ dealer for 3 or 4 years. Lots of new machines came in for new spindles in a year or so. I noticed they all had one thing in common; I asked the customer if he kept the deck washed off. They all said "Yes. Every time I mow, I wash it off as soon as I finish." I think this was the problem - spaying cold water on these hot spindle housings. (Yes, they're hot! Grab one, you'll let go fast.) My theory was the water was being pulled into the housing. My advice was to let it cool first, or use the blower to clean off the deck. Seems to work.

I thought the same as you, but was told by our maintenance manager those "sealed" bearings will pass grease through. So, I took the shop's Milwaukee electric grease gun home and filled my three new spindles. Grease passed through all six "sealed" bearings. The pressure of the grease gun easily overcomes the plastic seals. Try it yourself!

Thanks for your brave work in blowing the lid off this whole charade. No longer will I be subject to the tyrrany of Big Spindle!

Here's my method that has worked for me over the past 10 years, while running the same spindles and bearings. First, I removed the inner seal from the lower bearing, and BOTH seals from the upper. I reassembled the spindle, using a larger OD thrust washer that covered the open top bearing. I then pumped the spindle full of grease, via the shaft-end zerk (without a weep hole), until excess grease began to squeeze out from underneath the thrust washer. Don't worry about the upper bearing being open and exposed, where dirt, water, and other debris may cause problems. If you keep the spindles serviced regularly, they will be fine. Once full, it doesn't take much grease to service them. Hope this proven idea helps someone.

Based on 30+ years as an auto mechanic, those are not sealed bearings.those are open bearings with dust covers, the seals on sealed bearings are not removable without destroying the bearing. With the amount of open space inside the housing, it would probably take at least 80 pumps from a standard grease gun to push grease into the bearings.

Great video! Years ago when I was in a John Deere mower class around 1985. At that time the mindset was that they had gone to sealed bearings, but still had grease zerts on the spindles. I inquired as to why? The answer was that in the residential market, most spindle bearing failures were caused by water/moisture damage and lack of greasing and the issue of over greasing (blew out seals exposing bearing to the environment) in residential mowers by customers. The amount of hours a residential mower mows is not much. Nothing like a the hours on a commercial mower. The consumer would mow, wash off off his mower, moisture in the spindles, then it would set a week till they mowed again. Then the mower would also set all winter with the moisture in the spindles. One of the items was that damp grass clippings, would be left sitting on the mower deck. This was a spindle and a real deck killer. So sealed bearings was the answer. However John Deere were still recommending that the customer greased the spindles to push water from the spindle. The removal of water was to prolong the spindle. At that time bearings in commercial mowers were unsealed and grease-able. I think the manual now says to wash your mower, then grease, then put your mower away. I would be curious to what they print now. In the early years it was common practice to grease then go mow. Heckendorn helped introduce that thought, many, many years ago. A different mindset back then. What drove the change to the sealed bearings was to reduce mower deck warranty claims on newly sold mowers on John Deere residential mowers. I have noticed that grasshopper uses a sealed bearing but has a weep hole as you demonstrated. I have also noticed some mower models only require one to three pumps with a grease gun on their spindles, per a certain amount of hours. I really enjoyed your video, well done. Spindles take a huge pounding and operate in the worst environments and are over looked in routine maintenance. I used to replace a lot of them. When I would press them apart, most of them were full of rust. In my life time, a grease-able bearing is the way to go, and good maintenance. But sadly only a minority of us actually do the proper maintenance. Just my 2 cents, and thought I would share some info from the past.

I'd pack grease in both bearings before reinstalling. Great video. Love old school guys who improve on serviceability of mechanical parts.

Thank you! I'm glad I came across this video. I just installed 2 of these exact same spindles on my craftsman. I haven't used it yet and now they will be coming back off so that I can modify (fix) them.

Very informative. But I especially like the way you respect our time by giving a very brief intro and launching straight into the subject - I've also noticed this in other videos you do. Thank you ! ! !

Just did this to my 2 new spindles while watching your video. Thanks, Dennis! Your videos are great! Really appreciate you taking the time to make them.

Excellent instructable. No stumbles, Straight to the point and a clearly done video. I have seen none better.

Reminds me of growing up watching my Daddy work. He rarely bought anything unless absolutely necessary. He had lathes etc. and just about every tool I could imagine. He and his 8 brothers were very old school mechanical inclined. Fixed the problem instead of just constantly changing parts.

Again, another video you knocked out of the park. Ive greatly enjoyed watching every video you posted about your Husqvarna.

Super detailed instructional video Dennis. Every zreo turn/riding mower owners should see this. I'll be sure to follow this when I replace my spindles again. Thanks for your time doing this.

Your no-nonsense approach to getting after the task is great, Dennis.

Great job explaining the step by step instructions for something most of us didn't know, thanks

All good information, I have a 27 yr old craftsman garden tractor with original bearings and spindles, at the end of every season i pull the spindles and bearings out and gently pick out the bearing seal and hand pack it and replace. The bearings are all in good shape.

That is exactly what I did two years ago. All three spindles are still working perfectly and smoothly. I personally touch up the grease once every 25 hrs of operation with the rest of the service at the same time. Great video.

This is good advice. One other thing I would do, is prepack your bearings with new grease before reassembly. Then you are starting up the unit with full bearings.