MTD spindle bearing replacement 

Thanks, I'll use your method to do my other spindle now that I know my bearing size, 6204 RS. Thought I'd do it the easy way and just replace the spindles for $54 a pair. One spindle bolt was frozen and broke like you said, I thought no big deal I got new spindles. Turns out they're the wrong ones for my 11 yr old troy bilt. Can't return them so I remove the new spindle bearings and they were the same as my old ones. So I removed them and Put them in my old spindle after I spent an hr drilling out the old broke off bolt. Plus I hurt my lower back trying to remove the blade nut. Then got out the heavy duty impact wrench to finish the job. What a job that was. It would be easy if I could trust the parts to fit that I order so that was very annoying on top of everything else...lol

Great job. A video that the mechanic isn't learning as he videos. Good explanation and thorough description of how and why. I am finally impressed. Good job.

Very helpful - well explained, to the point, and no annoying music

Thank you,I have just made replacement idler pulleys with bigger replaceable bearings and now the spindles are next,

Thanks for making this video. Some mower decks, like the one on my 20 year old Snapper Lawn Tractor, have a built-in shoulder for a wrench to grab onto on the top of the shaft, apparently so you can keep the shaft from turning when installing the blades, but that shoulder makes the shaft too big on top to be knocked downward through the bearing, so, if that is what you find when doing this, just knock the shaft out from the bottom of the deck after removing the blade and all the belleville washers, spacers, and any dust cap over the bottom of the spindle. Some of the bearing have retaining or snap rings of different types that keep them in place - clean the top of the bearing off with spray brake cleaner or a rag, to find out whether or not you have any retaining rings to remove before trying to remove the shaft. Then you screw the nut onto the bottom of the shaft just enough so that you don't damage the spindle threads when you use a big hammer to knock the shaft out, just as shown in this video. If you have sealed bearings but no Zerk grease fittings on the OEM spindles, drilling a hole in the spindle housing and installing a grease fitting doesn't mean that the grease will actually get past the seals into the bearings. There some videos on YT that explain why this is the case, and what you can do about it. This is a link to one of them - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mRdrumlPOT0.html. One viewer of that video pointed out that if the bearings aren't completely worn out, you can use a grease injector with a thin needle to shoot a lot of grease under the seals. Generally, the edges of these seals can be lifted up enough to get the needle under it in different spots, without damaging the seals, by carefully using a pick tool, and without removing the bearings from the spindles. The improvement will be immediate and will get you about another year's use before you have to re-grease or replace them. Thanks again for the video, and I hope my comments will be of some help to those with certain Snapper, Murray, Simplicity or other lawn tractors with this type of mower deck and worn-out bearings in their spindles.

Wow, incredible video, thank you. I went down a rabbit hole researching how to clean up the deck on my old craftsman mower and ended up here, very informative and useful.

This is a great video. Is there an academy award for RU-vid videos?

A really good how to, my second hand mower will benefit greatly, thanks!

Thanks for this very useful video! I am getting ready to replace bearings in one of my Simplicity arbors this winter during down time. I ordered from Briggs a couple 6204 bearings (20x47x14) arriving soon. I think i will use your procedure exactly, except there are a few other rings or spacers just under the pulley on my mower other mowers don't seem to use. Thanks again!

Excellent instructional video, one of the BEST I have ever seen! THANK YOU!!

Great video! Now I know you don’t have to take the whole spindle off to get to the bearings. I’ve had very good luck with popping the covers off the bearings and soaking them. Keep moving them back-and-forth until they move freely, regrease and pop the covers back on. Worst case, you could keep them in case you couldn’t get any more bearings and use them again. Donyboy73 shows how to do this! Thank you again

Thanks, you just saved me some money!

You can Remove the Cover seal over bearings and use a needle grease fitting to grease the Bearings if there is just a small amount of play, this will allow bearings to last much longer without replacing them....

Excellent video. Great explanation makes it easy to understand . Obvious you do this a lot. Off to the garage now Thamks

Take pulley off and tap out bottom with blade attached Drill and tap for zert Replace brg 6204-RS Remove inside cover and install

Excellent vid. Nice job and thanks.

thank you you were very clear

I needed this. Good pfun informative vid.

Very informative video. Thanks for sharing.

Make sure that you remove seal on one side of new bearings and fill with grease--most of the new bearings hardly have any grease in them thus they wear out prematurely....

Well done good video !

Good stuff brother

Around 18:17 I see when you tapped in the spindle the left side bearing moved a little up out of its seat.. I guess the impact pushed it back down

Nice video ..Thanks for the link

thank you great job

My Troybuilt Pony bearings lasted till somehow the pulley was torn out of the deck at that point I checked the bearings and one spindle was bad. I had to beat the metal back down into the deck and weld it,.......now I'm waiting on a torsion spring. My grass is really high.

I can only imagine the merciless beating those bearings take and that is sometimes all day long. Using a good grease *might* make them last longer.

Thank You very much Great video. jim s

FYI The owners manual for my Craftsman 42 " mower had the bearing ID # (and dimensions) right in the parts list. It was the same as what he has. Usually you can find the manual online and check it.

very good video,,, ty

I have the older style of quills and I only get 40 hours out of the bearings. A few days ago my deck threw its belt. The bearings were noisy and I had to destroy a quill to get the bearings out. I get nowhere near 10 years out of the bearings. It depends on what grease the bearings contain. That never gets stated on the bearing or box.

So vid cutoff where get the bearings or regrease

excellent !

I need to see how it goes back together. Damnit.

Make sure you use antiz on bolts, nuts and remove inter brg cover plus drill and install zert

Definitely an impact job either harbor freight pneumatic or one of their battery/corded electric either way

An excellent video. I've got to change the bearings on both sides of an MTD Lawnflite 908 at the weekend. Looks like I'll need to borrow my son's impact driver. 🙂 I've gone for some 6204-2RS sealed bearings, 20x47x14 (MTD 741-0919A). Like you say, why bother with greasing bearings when they're only £17.80 for all four?

just took mine apart, had 1 bearing and a bunch of dust 😂

I'd reccomend sealed bearings. How does the top bearing get grease?

I've got an impact wrench but I have minute to take off; every single vido shows the pulley held on with a nut. Not mine, a 36" Murray. Used a pulled to remove blade adapter undrrneat, which wasn't easy. So am I supposed just to hit the spindle for underside? ( obviously putting the nut back on first to preserve threads). Anyone know? Thank you!

Video loses sound at 8:52 I would like to finish watching it so far it's very helpful until the sound cut off :(... ok I have confirmed this... it is the app you can watch the full video with sound using the browser

Great video. What is that tool you used to hammer out the bearings? I need one of those.

This looks a lot like my huskee LT 3800 I believe my bearings are shot also there’s a terrible vibration and the belt keeps jumping off

11 minutes of the end of the MTD spindle bearing replacement bearing appears to have been replaced with. the Dog spindle bearing replacemet video.

Is there a video that shows how to install the new bearings in the spindle? Do you grease them or are they greased already?

For the small cost difference on my Troy Bilt, I replaced the spindles entirely with greaseable units. I'll just pump them full every year and hopefully never do this job again.

I have a bolens 38'' deck. blades won't turn and belt smokes when activating the pto.not to sure how to fix.

I have a old mtd rideing mower with two real bad bearing on the one spindel and it takes three bolts to hold the blade on .this leads to my question would it be better to upgrade to a 5 or 6 star spindle then stay with the old style 🤔

Have you ever changed bearings in an old Sears mower? I have a 1973 16 HP with 42 inch deck. The tractor is know as a suburban. It has the original bearings, 45 years old. They are tapered roller bearings, LM11949. I tried to press the shaft out with a 12 ton jack but it wouldn't budge. There is knarling on the shaft just above the bearing and it has to go back thru the bearing. If you have worked on one of these, how did you get the shaft out and the outer races? Thank you...

Over the years I found that most lawn tractor blades will spin at far faster rates of speed then most push lawn mower blade do . lawn tractor blades will spin up to around 35000 rpm. And if you wondering why spindle bearing wear out. It is directly cause by blunt out of balance blades or belts. And a deck belts life will shorten and eventfully brake mainly because they are not tracking right . I use my lawn tractor ever two weeks I check and if needed resharpen and balance my blades depending on use from every three to six .months My old lawn mowing contractor told me he would check and resharpens or replace his blades once a month

I have the same exact 38" mower, did it take the 203 RS or 204 RS bearings?

Spindle bearing replacement on commercial toro zero turn

Is there a part 2 to this video somewhere?

My 05 yard machine needs the bearings replaced on the variable speed pulley how can I find the correct ones?

I loosend the nuts and hit the nut with a hasmmer and destroyed the threads,....like it was a lead bolt. The I had to buy a new spindle.

When you replaced the bearings in this video you said there are two bearings for each spindle. Are the two bearings the same size diameter?

Hi , i was wondering where you order your bearings from ? Thanks . Also what size socket was that you used to seat the bearings with ? Thanks again .

How did you put the bearings back in? If they were so difficult to get out

How did you fix the transmission

Something strange with your video, it shows it’s 20 mins long on your thumbnail view but it’s only 8 minutes long when you go to play it, it only shows you removing them not installing them, and I was wondering if you installed grease zerks on the spindles and removed one side of the seal on each of the bearings so the grease can get to them?

can i do this job without impact driver?

Oh my gosh, video seized @ 20:02 :(😢