Thank you for the positive comments. I had a lot of fun building it with my son. The blades are always engaged. Not the safest but that was the way the deck was set up.
For those who may try to use original spindles, when you drill out the broken mounting bolts, get enough light and a superfine center punch to make the dimple to start drilling the self tappers out. It makes the last tiny fragments of the self tappers easier to remove. Get yourself enough room. I admire these guys who have 60x80 foot garages.
I am building one and the two biggest problems I have are making sure that the motor pulley is the same size that the deck pulleys are so the speed of the belt is the same through the pulleys on the deck and the drive pulley. The other problem is finding bearings and tube stock to make the swivels on the front wheels.
I will share with pleasure. Hopefully I will try to add some sort of mechanism to engage the blades only on demand. This would allow me to engage/disengage from my side x side without having to get out every time I want to stop the blade to go over a rock or other obstacle.
Absolutely fantastic, looks professional! I would like to do something similar to maintain my trails at my hunting camp, buy hard to find the time to do it. How are the blades engaged, do you have some sort of switch/lever to engage them when needed?
I’m building one just like it. The spindles and bearings are on order but the idler wheels have to be disassembled to replace the idler wheel bearings. Bad design. Could have done the whole idler wheel thing right for just 2 dollars more in machine screws. Also those self tapping screws that held the original spindles had to be drilled out. A real PITA. I wire wheeled off all of the rust and applied 3 coats of Rustoleum for dirty metal and 2 coats of Rustoleum red paint. Currently, I’m still treating the pulleys and hardware on the deck but soon I’ll start the superstructure for the wheels and engine. Then I’ll have to mount the engine, battery (maybe) and the gasoline tank. Figure I’ll save 50 pct over the whole build.
Good job, I did one using a Swisher 60" deck, stripped it completely down, & used 3 Harbor Freight 5.5 hp engines, WHY?? In doing so I eliminated Spindles, Belts, Idlers, Pulleys and ALL things associated with such, I even tied in ONE fuel tank for all engines, I have NO cables or wiring whatsoever, the 3 new engines $125.00 each thus $375.00 will be the MAX I would ever have to pay out for replacements of the engines, I have paid that out in spindle replacements before. Those engines crank at FIRST pull/
