@@mitch1847 that’s exactly what I covered in this video. If it has a weep hole, plug it and grease the assembly or loose bearings

@@rhyoliteaquacade thanks for sharing, that’s good prof to support my claims. Grease will easily pass shields and also proof that the shield won’t dislodge. As evidence I love that vide as it supports my findings and strengths my findings. The way he shows it really breaks it down and excludes some of the complicating factors. Basically low pressure grease finding its way past rubber lips. Not much to it. As a way to show the facts it’s great but I’d remove that shield and fill the bearing using my grease needle and snap the shield back in place. Thanks for sharing.

@@GTObearclaw1 I looked all over for my grease needle but my garage is beyond a mess. It makes sense to load them up and push any moisture and grit out. If it were a wheel bearing the advice would be to load them up.

@@rhyoliteaquacade seals don’t pop off, Iv never seen a seal off a bearing unless the bearing was destroyed like the ones you had going out. Adding grease won’t make the seals pop off, at least Iv never experienced that. But maybe the grease is burping the air out of the assembly. Iv heard some noises like that before and even when greasing heavy equipment joint with no seals. It’s just how grease sounds sometimes when it’s passing through the tight spots. Thanks for taking time to comment. How many hours did your bearings go before failure without adding grease? That information may help others who question this process.

@@khwolter9038 not really something I’m concerned about. Once filled with grease it’s good to go in most cases, unless a spindle is broke and needs to be replaced it would be unusual to Need to deal with it again. After the first greasing it only takes a few pumps on later services. Grease is not that expensive, I can get a tube of grease for about what a name brand Kohler or Briggs oil filter cost. I can get 2 or three STP or Fram oil filters for what one Briggs or Kohler brand cost. Lots of ways to save $.

@@sebastiangarces5652 these are amazing units and some of my favorite stoves. I’m sad to think how many were left outside to rot and sent to scrap yards. Iv noticed they are so much harder to find in Texas over the past 10 years I almost never see them for sale now

@@joesshop3622 it’s all about the level of quality - everything from the amount of grease, bearing quality, bearing size, storage conditions and many more things come into play. I mostly know about the box store brands and if they have a zerk you better add grease, if they don’t just hope they did right and packed them with grease and used quality components. In the long run, buyer usually gets what they pay for. Buy cheep and expect cheep, buy expensive and sometimes you get a quality product. Sometimes even that is not a sure thing.

@@GTObearclaw1 Way too many look for the cheap way out and they get exactly what they wanted...cheap shit that is likely ready for a land fill on day one. I'm tired of paying the Chinese to make shit!

@@RodneyOrff-js3xz I agree, JUNK. 100 series are straight junk and getting worse every year consecutively for 24 years. Impressive record. Deere really trying to run the brand into The ground.

@@RobertFulton-o9j I just proved that’s a waste of time. that’s a lot of extra needless work you can avoid now if you have zerks. No need to take things apart just to remove seals that don’t stop passage of grease. This information will get you the same results in less time. I use to waste a lot of time dismantling decks to grease bearings until i finally realized this was the way to do it fast and efficiently. Simply run some tests and you will see. We have to think logically sometimes. Doing extra work won’t always add more benefit.

@@drmikeosgood that seems like a complicated and confusing way to say what I showed. Also why I specifically greased it in the video fully assembled.

@@drmikeosgood How would I prove a point about grease passing through a bearing if I greased it with a needle? Geeeez, did you even watch the video? Of course we can add grease into the bearings while the assembly is apart but I’m clearly showing here that the assembly does not need to come apart to get grease into the bearings. And why would anyone want to dismantle the deck to grease the bearings when it’s not needed, that was the point

@@jamesgeorge1709 nice work and your correct that is a fact.

@@cycarelic tanks for the comment and appreciate the support. Glad to see that some folks are willing to trust the process. Just wish I’d have learned this many years ago before I had already dismantled a hundred decks to get the same result.

@@billcuningham586 Iv seen many designs and all I have seen in person allow for grease to exit between the bearings. The void would fill first then push through the bearings.

@@allanfaust9210 awesome, I’m excited to hear back in years to come when you dont ever have to replace them again. You’re on the right path now brother. Thanks for the comment and thanks for trusting the information. You won’t regret it.

@@philliphall5198 thanks for the comment. I am baffled there are so many so called lawn mower mechanics on KZbin advising people not to grease an assembly equipped with a grease zerk. I have also added zerks onto the assemblies without one and it works fantastic every time regardless if there are shields in the inner facing sides of bearings. Doesn’t make one bit of difference. It seems logical that any rational person who considers themselves to be any kind of reputable mechanical would consider this information and run some tests and find the truth but after 3 years of this video being up, I have yet to see anything but opposing information and not a single naysayer has posted one shrewd of evidence to contribute proof that this process won’t work. I’m still waiting.

@@johnpro2847 Thats spectacular. Listen to big brother will take us far in life. Live the way they tell us and blindly follow. No thanks. I’ll run tests and figure out how to save my money and make my equipment last.

@@johnpro2847 no shit

@@meseahunt happy to do it, thanks for leaving a comment.

@@robertmcmahon2744 currently in my area a very nice Deere deck in excellent 9/10 condition is selling for 400 to 500$ easily. When I made this repair they sold for around 250$ to 300$. Markets changed. It’s all Relative.

@@remowb Iv never been able to “over grease” with a hand pump grease gun. The excess grease just passes out of the assembly. No harm just mess

@@hartzland7658 the faster you break it the sooner you need parts. They are in business to make money. We have to protect ourselves. It’s bad enough they engineered things to fail but at minimum we can keep them serviced to make last as long as possible

@@RichardEidson hopefully adding grease will save those deck bearings. Sometimes when they start making noise it’s already too late but maybe you can save them

@@gpt5002 if you don’t fill the housing with grease it is guaranteed to be full of air. air won’t hurt anything but not having grease in the bearings will eventually be an issue. Also water can get into the assembly if left out in the rain or when washing and water in the bearings is bad. If they are full of grease there is less issues with water however water can still be in the bearings. When greasing the water usually pushes out for the most part. It’s best to keep the machines out of the weather and use air / leaf blower to clean the deck after each use if someone really wanted to prevent unwanted issues

@@leonhart2452 that would probably work fine, however I don’t advise to take one apart if it’s working fine and well lubed it may never need to come apart. Why do all that work to save 1/15th of a tube of grease? If I was already into The assembly that might make a little sense, however I still don’t understand why saving a small amount of grease would be that big of a concern. Folks do oil changes all the time and that cost more than the small amount of grease that would not need to be changed, only add a few more pumps of grease once in a while and the majority would stay in place and work for decades. I would not make sense to add filler in the crab case to lessen how much lubricant is in the crank case, so I would not see why it would make any more sense in the mandrel housing. Save grease yes, but why?

@@js-wq6zy it hadn’t occurred to me that might be needed. This was simply just to show the quick process for changing a tank. I don’t typically look for ways to make my videos longer especially when it does not add value for the DIYer. Changing a hose should be a little easier than some repairs, not sure that many folks would be looking for or have much need for more detail on changing a hose but now that you mention I do recall having several issues with getting an old dried up crusty hose off the fitting and Iv had a few break causing damage to the tank. So maybe I should cover how to get a hose off in a way it won’t risk snapping the tank connection. Thanks for the suggestion.

@@Rein_Ciarfella cool, I hope the video helped. That’s why I like to make them in hopes that the things I learn can be useful to others. I come to KZbin to find the tips that other folks have learned. I don’t want to do everything the hard way but that’s usually how it turns out. lol. I am kinda lazy about making the videos, sometimes go years between adding a new vodeo. I like to make videos on things that don’t seem to be covered topics yet. Rather than regurgitate the same old stuff that has been constantly covered by other folks. I enjoy seeing the comment folks send. Thanks for taking time lo leave a comment.

@@thunderstruck1078 some Do but fewer and Few come with the inner facing shield off these days, I wouldn’t worry about it. The shields / seals dont stop grease anyways. Just pump the assembly full and go on with business as usual. As long as the units are filled with grease we can spend the rest of our life wondering if the inner side has a shield because there will not be any reason to take the assembly apart to check if bearings stay lubricated. The point of the video is to prove those shields don’t matter. So many mower repair channels. Actually every one of the channels that covers this topic is spreading misinformation about the topic. and not a single one will prove their claims that grease won’t penetrate the shield. They are wrong and that information is misleading a lot of folks. I use to believe the same thing for many years until I started experimenting.

@@larrynelson7839 I do appreciate the positive comment and thanks for taking time to share. it’s proven to work for me for 20 years and way better than letting the bearings dry up and eventually fail. So simple it’s silly nobody else has posted a video on the topic showing the process Iv shown. And even crazier that every other video is against greasing or saying grease won’t pass the shields. A simple test is all that’s necessary to find the truth. Silly really, but here we are.

@@dennisoneal8505 that’s a good one. Don’t forget about part 2.

@@GTObearclaw1 Yes, the one about the weep holes, Yes, I've watched it too. I don't know why there are u tube videos that claim that you don't need to grease the spindles. Woodchuck does a great job proving it is a myth. I've even tested it on a old yard sale mower I bought and the grease does in fact go into the bearings.

LOL just realized you are woodchuck, I guess I had a senior moment there.

Also, I hope you don't mind me sharing your video link.

@@dennisoneal8505 absolutely share as you want. I drop the link into other peoples video comments to help folks find the truth when they are watching those other nonsense videos. It would be nice if some of those so called pros would at least take the time to show the viewers why it won’t work and show the assembly being greased in real time and explain to us where the grease is going if it can’t pass through the assembly. That shouldn’t be very difficult to show on video but for some reason nobody will connect a grease gun and explain why it won’t work. I find that very odd especially from folks who are supposedly giving out helpful advice. It would be fun to watch them try to explain how grease didn’t pass through a bearing on a sealed unit while they pump grease into the assembly and it squirts out either end of the unit after passing the bearings. they would look foolish for having provided misinformation for so long then comming back and admitting they were wrong but I could at least respect that and they would simply just have made an honest mistake. But not even attempting to make sure it’s impossible to grease before advertising it won’t work is lazy. Hopefully more folks like you will consider the information on booth sides and try it at home and find the truth. Thanks for commenting.

@@JJE2010MO use a heat gun to warm up any bolts before trying to remove a mandrel and it will Save a lot of trouble. Those dang bolts break more often than not but with heat I rarely have one break. It’s lovely and saved me a lot of headaches. That being said, don’t remove the housing unless it’s necessary to take it loose from the deck. I rebuild mine with the mandrels are mounted most the time that’s easier anyways. Happy mowing.

@@Southalabamaoutdoors I’m not gonna try to convince you otherwise, I think it would be a waste of time for us both.

@@seniorchief48 too much grease is not relevant here. Fill the assembly full. Any excess will push right past the rubber shield. This is nothing new and has been standard practice around rising mowers for 40 to 50 years mainly more well known on the commercial side but none the less as Iv said before, it will hurt nothing and only benefits to add more grease. For those who want to take a deck apart and clean out grease and add some special “red and tacky” have at it. Won’t help your bearings any better than me just keeping g mine full of the cheep stuff. This application won’t matter much about the quality. It’s more important just to make sure they are greased. Many folks are overthinking this simple and basic application.

@@donaldschneider4050 thanks. It’s common sense stuff but common sense is not so common it seems.

@@Hodado nice. Hopefully other folks see your comment and realize it’s not acceptable for bearings to fail after just a few years and if the bearings are not greased they sure won’t last 24 years. How many hours on your tractor? I imagine you must be near or over 1000 by now?

I’ll be at a thousand soon.Ive noticed in a lot of the newer models that the zerks are absent I bet you’ve repaired a lot of them

@@Hodado unfortunately they seem to last less and less time. The newer the machine the less time they last, without adding grease of course. Iv seen some go out in 60 hours. Yes Iv fixed a few, haha.

@@davidrobins7753 thanks for the comment. It baffles me nobody else has made a video to cover this. Every other channel says they can’t be greased or it’s a waste of time and yet so many KZbinrs comment that they do it this way for decades and never had a bad bearing. Why are the mower repair guys “experts” who make videos not understanding this. Geeeeze, at least run some tests like I did and learn. It’s not useless information. I’m a shade tree hobbiest at best and I figured it out, I’ll admit it took me a good many years to stumble on it and finnaly pump a unit full and figure out where the grease goes when the unit is filled. Kept having bearings burn up. Not enough grease to fill the unit and push grease into the bearings

@@robertcromwell9736 the lip of a seal is a flexable rubber flap. If the assembly is a sealed assembly with no weep hole, the only exit is through the bearings as the rubber lip is the path of least resistance. If you have a weep hole, see part two for that fix.

@@GTObearclaw1 True but hard to get much thru there. I just remove the bearing, remove the rubber covers, clean with solvent and repack with good grease and replace the covers. Good for another few years then rinse and repeat. Putting too much pressure in there can push out grease around the outer seal and attract dirt, etc.

@@robertcromwell9736 in fact it’s actually very easy. It may be hard for some folks to understand because they can’t see what’s happening inside the unit so folks come up with all kinds of theories but they are wrong if they believe there is anything wrong with this process. Most folks including all the experts providing help videos are wrong. Not a single video on KZbin other than mine shows the step by step and nobody will prove the process doesn’t work. Folks should test this out and make their own decisions. grease can be pumped straight into the unit via the zerk and that’s simply all that’s needed. But easy enough to test it just like Iv shown. I get comments often how folks have had tractors for 20 years running the same deck bearings with nothing g more than greasing as Iv shown. Something to be said about those comments. Rubber lips on the shield / seals pose no restriction as some folks imagine. That is exactly why I ran through the step by step process in my video to break it down into baby steps so the folks who don’t grasp this can see it in the most simple way possible. Unfortunately some folks still can’t wrap their heads around this very simple pricess. It is way easier than taking the assembly apart to grease each bearing. Also, dirt outside the seal is fine and no reason for concern. It’s outside the bearing where it won’t hurt anything and is just messy. Same as many other applications, of course dirt will stick to grease but as long as it’s outside the working surfaces it’s simply just dirt and not harmful. I wipe away the grease that exits to keep my deck cleaner. And I stop greasing as soon as I see some grease escaping through a bearing shield so it’s less messy. It will be fine and won’t hurt anything. This is just normal preventative maintenance. All the grease will pass through the bearing if you keep pumping more and more grease passes through. It’s just pointless to keep pumping because the smallest amount of grease in a bearing will go a long ways and regular greasing would be wise. If you overfill the bearing the motion of the bearing will simply push the excess out past the lip. It’s basically a self regulating system. Your way works fine, however I prefer less work for the same benefits. The point of the video is to avoid that extra work and provide evidence that the so called experts are wrong. Plenty of channels on KZbin say not to even bother greasing at the zerk but unfortunately they are too lazy to make a video to prove they are right. I got sick of the BS and made my video to prove they are wrong. Grease in fact passes into the bearing and no harm occurs. There is no argument from me that doing it your way won’t work just fine. But the majority of folks are not going to go to to that much trouble when a grease zerk that comes standard on many machines is just fine to get the grease to where it needs to be. Not everyone has the tools or intrest in taking a deck part. And I argue it really won’t do any better for your bearings than how Iv shown. I believe taking things apart that don’t need to come apart could risk something breaking that otherwise would have been just fine. But each person can choose the path. My goal was to prove this way works just fine. Donny boys bad advice sparked this video and I offered him the opportunity to test my theory and help his viewers and after over a year waiting I made my video and Iv already had double the views in much less time so apparently someone finds the information useful and it’s been very interesting for me to see this much attention on a video as I’m not a very popular channel and sometimes go 2 years between making a video. Iv had fun replaying to folks.

@@dennisoneal8505 thanks for the comment and yes I agree, the two metals and storage out doors does not help at all. But recently I got a cheep heat gun and started heating those bolts on the older units and it’s been a game changer. I don’t think Iv had one break yet. As long as I get that puppy hot hot hot! I just lay the gun down and let it run on the spindle housing a while to really heat it up nice and I can go work on something else for a few minutes while it cooks. Wish I’d have figured that out many years ago. Probably a good topic for a video.

@@GTObearclaw1 Great tip! I'll have to remember that.

@@GTObearclaw1 Definitely do a video just on this! I’m watching so many people snapping bolts left and right, costing themselves or their customers so much more money! I was never choosing to get notifications because I watched all your old videos already and you weren’t producing much content. Now I’ll get notifications and watch regularly. 🔧👍

@@Rein_Ciarfella thanks, and hope I can think of some cool things to cover soon. Maybe your right and a video on the heating of the bolts for easy removal is a good idea for next video. However I don’t recommend to ever take a housing loose unless it’s already damaged. The bearings and shaft can be repaired while housing is mounted. No need to risk breaking those bolts.

@@garysumlin8355 huhhh?

@@theobserver9131 good work. And thanks for the comment Did your new units have zerks? Or did you disassemble the unit to manually fill them?

@@GTObearclaw1 they had zerts. took almost FOREVER to fill them. I thought about disassembling them, but I just settled in for about an hour and pumped.

@@GTObearclaw1 It was a "rescue" mower. Just rusting in someones back yard. They gave it to me and I brought it back to life. Just scored a push mower at the dump yesterday! Tore it down and cleaned it up this morning, and put it to work by noon!

@@theobserver9131 my favorite projects are usually the rescues. Got one the other day and only reason it wouldn’t start was because the prior owner had put a fuel cut off in the guile line and the person selling the estate didn’t know that. I didn’t even realize until I got it home and diagnosed it as a fuel issue then found the cut off before I pulled anything apart. I got super lucky!!!

@@crawwwfishh3284 yes sir 100%. Throw away society is what I think. Make it cheeper but sell for a premium. Designs parts don’t last and then make the parts obsolete so we can’t fix it. Handy man world it is. We can make things last. I love finding trash that just needs a little work. I’m more proud of my operational trash finds than I am of the things I spent a bunch of money on. Iv been annoyed about the lack of grease fittings. Each year the equipment has less and less. I have trucks that are 20 plus years old still original steering joints because I just keep greasing them. But some of the new vehicles have zero zerks. Let’s see how that plays out.

@@GTObearclaw1 So true if the commies at u boob don’t erase this I will be watching.

@@markg1247 some good points and you could be right about a lot of things on this topic. I’ll admit you seem to know more about the subject than I care to dive into. Basically I know grease is good and dry bearings are bad and Iv seen plenty of new machines with under 100 hours with total failure of the deck bearings and PTO bearings I will add. you kinda lost traction at pushing a seal off the bearing. Thats not something that happens in these applications. It won’t happen even if you try to make it happen. I cant explain why it’s not an issue because it seems plenty logical but for this application it’s just not a problem. Probably because the assembly is put together in a way that the shields can’t simply back off The bearings while other components are blocking it. No room to move out away from bearing. Or because only one small area of the lip has to give way to let a liquid escape. Regardless of why, Iv never seen it happen once in many years of doing this. If I would have found any draw backs of this application as Iv displayed I would have stated so, but to this day it only has 100% positives and absolutely zero negatives that I have ever encountered. You can pump as many pumps into the assembly as you like wound make any difference to the seal/sheld. Doesn’t matter if it’s a metal shield or plastic or plastic coated shield they all have a lip and that’s where the grease passes. It’s very basic and anything Iv shown can be tested at home. If anyone can prove damage can be caused please feel free to make a video explaining and pointing out the exact damage caused and post the link in my comments. I’ll glad stand behind anything I can duplicate if there is any way this causes damage but after over a decade of nothing but success, I wouldn’t expect to find anything that can be proven other than the absolute Benefits of greasing the assembly till it’s filled. Inner seals do no good one way or another and more less just there for assembly purposes from what I can tell. Has never been proven one way or another. I happen to believe they are more beneficial to be in place for holding grease in the upper bearing. If it only takes 5psi to dislodge a seal, it’s interesting that Iv never seen that happen. Possibly because the assembly is not holding any pressure and the grease simply pushes past the seal under “5psi”. I don’t know the pressures it takes to push through the assembly and I can’t confirm 5psi would push a shield / seal off a bearing, but I can say it’s never happened to me. And nobody in any of the comments in well over two years has ever shown proof. One thing I can say with certainty is that’s is the naysayers with no evidence who argue about this process but many people leave comments who have been doing this for decades and never had any bearing issues. Take it for what it’s worth, do it or don’t do it. I won’t benefit either way, the owner of the mower is the one who will benefit in the end. Point is, the process works just as Iv shown and it’s the simple way to make bearings last. No need to dismantle new decks to remove a shield that presents no opposition to grease passing and no need to spend time dismantling something that has a grease zero already present. Yes, I get it that plenty of folks would rather do it that way because in their brains it just makes more sense, but my point is that the easy way works 100% of the time and is just as good as doing it the hard way and the process I show is much better than just running the deck to failure. Folks can do as they wish with the information. Maybe just giving folks something to think about is enough. Cause nobody else on KZbin has a video showing to do it this way. But plenty of bad advice on the topic unfortunately.

@@GTObearclaw1 Just passing along some info of the possibilities. I've worked on everything from 1/4" cam followers to very large yankee dryer main shaft bearings. Most of the pushed out seals I've come across were in electric motors, but I've seen plenty in regular old 1" pillow blocks. Just had one happen a month or two ago, a young guy at a compressor station I take care of (electrically) called and said he was seeing elevated vibration readings from an oil cooler fan. 3" double row pillow block on a shaft for a 10' diameter 4 blade fan. I brought up an analog input trend in the PLC to graph the vibration. I asked if it was recently greased, he said it had a Simatec automatic lubricator on it and he wasn't sure if it was working. I asked if he could put a couple of shots by hand in it while I watched the trend to see if it helped. He headed out and came back a few minutes later and I noticed him putting a new grease sleeve in a battery operated grease gun. I asked how much he put in, he said only one tube! I took him back out and the grease was already running down the shaft out of the fan housing, and we could see the seal wobbling around through an inspection port. That's an extreme case, but it can happen. Is it likely to happen on a mower spindle, probably not. I doubt there are too many "super greasers" out there. Can it happen, sure, that's why I mentioned it. Should someone be cognizant of the possibility, sure, that's why I mentioned it. Here's a link to a good quick read about the subject. www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/31806/too-much-little-lubricant I did notice a typo in my post, it should be 50 psi, not 5 psi. Missed a zero.

@@markg1247 thanks, good conversation I still Disagree, I don’t believe the shelf will pop off on a mower deck spindle assembly due to how it’s put together. No room for it to push away.

@@dennisoneal8505 absolutely and then you could access it from the top side of the deck and it would not get covered with grass and hidden. I like that idea.