John Deere "Dirty Secret" Deck Spindle Bearings Upgrade "Easy Defect Fix"

Never replace spindle again. Show you how to replace bearings and upgrade your spindle to last forever. Original spindle is defective. Watch this video to see why. See cut away model.
Spindle in this video is # AM144377 but same upgrade can be done to many others.
This spindle fits these models and others;
42M, 48C, 54C, 62C
LT180, LT190, LX280, LX289,
GX325, GX335, GX345, GX355,
X300, X320, X324, X340, X360,
X500, X520, X530, X534, X540, X590,
X710, X730, X734, X738, X739,
X750, X754, X758,
Z425, Z435, Z445, Z465, Z540M
Link to purchase Bearings, tap, & grease fitting
Bearings ; amzn.to/3BwXb2l
Thread Tap ; amzn.to/3DbCIS6
Drill Bit ; amzn.to/3Bb7h7A
Grease Zerk ; amzn.to/3UcHbKq
High Quality Bearings at an affordable price here: amzn.to/3e89hGe
Try Amazon Prime for Free; amzn.to/3L88YHP
"As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases."

[@jimmyjohnson1452]

Grease fitting with sealed bearing 😅😂. Great video Good job on your spindle cut away

[@M.Huling]

Thanks for making the video, I’m having to replace the bearings in the two spindles on my John Deere LX279. I know exactly why the engineers at John Deere design those spindles, 1. They don’t care 2. It’s multi billion dollar company 3. They Intentionally design it that way so that it fails because they want you to come back for service to get it fixed or to sell you a brand new mower. But I wanted to say thanks for showing the cut away and demonstrating how and where to put the grease zert. Yeah they intentionally hope that the bearings fail , they don’t care anymore. They hope that people will come back and buy a new mower

[@philliphall5198]

I change more to work on jd just because people are stupid

[@philliphall5198]

Thank you for sharing this information because people just don’t think jd would screw them over and this is proof I rebuilt all spindles I can and drill and tap them for zert

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@johndoe-uf9pu]

man I miss you. ever since I moved from Greenville I haven't been able to find anyone who knows how to fix my stuff so I have to go to youtube to do my own repairs and I found you! And to everyone else, this is one of the best mechanice you'll ever find. Keep it up Mike j

[@IFIXIT4U]

Wow! Thank you!

[@dharr6628]

John Deere prides itself on producing quality products, they should have you as a consultant.

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@miishutka]

*John Deer knows exactly what they are doing, they don't care about people, but they do care about money. Many other companies do the something. Money 💰 money flow that's what matters for them.*

[@timothymilam732]

What I've found is basically the same thing you have, and that's on husqvarna either the fabricated deck or the standard decks. Even on cub cadets the same problem, but I just pulled the seals on both sides of the top bearings, and the top side of the lower bearings. Plus I hand packed the bearings before I put them in the spindle housing, and pack the space between them as full as I can get it inside even to the point of adding a little heat from my Mep gas torch. Not hot enough to actually liquefy it, but enough that it flows enough to get all the air out of it Plus it assures me that the bottom bearings are greased good. As of why, I think it is fairly obvious that the manufacturer's know that the majority of people aren't going to bother with popping the shafts out of the spindle housing to replace the bearings, or even the shafts that the spline, or the striped out knobs that they have on the bottom end that hold the blades in place. They charge ridiculous prices for your high end mowers just because of the name MTD builds them under. So instead of few dollars for bearings at Greenville bearing, and either order the new shaft from them, someone like yourself, online independent parts suppliers. For those that think you gotta have OEM parts regardless of the ridiculous prices, are those unfortunate souls that honestly don't know any better. Then they sell at 500% markup, raping the customers who already paid too much for the name already. That and majority of people never do any preventative maintenance such as couple squirts of grease at all the points that have a place, and most probably never change the oil, or even bother to knock the dirt out of the air filters until it's totally stopped up, are it shuts down on the oil safety. That's my take on that, and yes Sir I know I do it everytime with my nonstop rattling about something that you and hopefully those that watch already know about. Good to hear from you again, and I promise one day I'll stop by down to y'all's place and say hey. So until then y'all have a Great Day, and may Tomorrow Be even Better

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@joelstolarski2244]

Well said. And the bearings on Husqvarna are made in China. Not that all their products are shit. But these bearings are pretty critical in the chain. Problems with bearing could cause undue or uneven friction if one side fails or seizes, and instead of just spindle rebuild would lead to sale of new unit. Husqvarna has no phone number to call btw. I rotated thru multiple customer service reps that in midst of my Karen mode, was undetrstandable. I’m not happy that customer service on an expensive machine is so poor. Prior was a Troy Bilt. Spindles never failed. Deck did, but mechanically 15 years and it cut like a charm for some reason. Was cheapie. Not cost of a low end used car like the Husqvarna.

[@timothymilam732]

@@joelstolarski2244 funny you say that, because I've still have a cheap craftsman 42" 20 hp kholer single cylinder that I paid under thousand dollars for, and it out cuts the pos husqvarna all day long. Nothing is fancy about have to manually engage blades, and it's rather small for my 6'1" self. But other then the cheap steering that's happens to be identical to the husqvarna that's the only weak point I ever had trouble with. I tried their customer service couple times with the mower and a chainsaw I've got, and never got anything from them, with the exception of the first week I had it. I could mow for 30 minutes, and it would just die, then wouldn't start for a hour. They sent me to warranty repair place down the road from here . Carried it over there explained what it was doing, and tech goes out to the truck starts it up let's it run for few minutes, and tells me he doesn't see anything wrong with it. I said you have to get it hot from working 30 minutes not sitting on the dam trailer for 5 minutes running at idle. Needless to say I never bothered after that, and have just delt with it myself this whole time. Buddy bought zero turn about same time, same deck same engine but it cuts hundred percent better, and has been a better machine than mines ever been. Twice the blade speed didn't leave streaks if standing grass between the blades, would discharge three times what mine will, and cut Johnson grass 2 feet tall and never bog down or load up under the deck itself like mine does on 8" of dry Bermuda grass

[@joelstolarski2244]

@@timothymilam732 It's hard to do a major Karen on Husky's rotten customer service chat system. The second CS rep was a bigger ahole than the first one. I screenshotted the messaging and will go ahead and post it to Google review. Done with husqvarna. Having a mounting bolt break off after soaking all night with deep creep really was agravating. Didn't use an impact, but carefully tried to loosen with a breaker bar. Bolt broke with very little pressure.We 're under a heat wave with 115 degrees for last 2 weeks. Heat wave broke some now that I got the bolt out cleanly .Now I'm broken...lol.Bearings bought off Ebay are incorrect. Upper bearing needs an extended bearing race for the pulley wheel. This has been one of those fixes from hell. Gonna order the assembled spindles off Ebay there's a seller that has what looks like spindle oem for a decent price. Can't deal with this anymore.

[@eyezeeeyeprints9452]

Thank you. My spindle was slightly different but the information in this video transfer well I’m going to order some new bearings now to replace my damaged ones

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@tedsobottka2750]

Outstanding video. Have a S100 lawn tractor that I perform maintenance on regularly to include the mower deck which is the most labor intensive. No surprise right. Have an old spindle laying around I’m going to experiment with to do this modification. Thanks for the roadmap.

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thanks 👍

[@kevin1339]

Thanks for another great video. Very informative

[@IFIXIT4U]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@frankburkett7453]

Great video. I just took the spindles apart on my brand new Cub Cadet xt1 LT50 with only 10 hours on it. Not sure what was on the bearing but it’s not grease, almost like a light oil and hardly any of it. I cleaned the bearings with brake clean today and will pack them with grease tomorrow. There are no grease zerks on the spindles from the factory but I’m seriously considering installing them. I like your idea of removing the inner bearing seals so the grease can easily get to the bearings.

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@capeman10]

Thank you for the upload and information.

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@SWEETZ5544]

Thank you so much for the info

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you

[@michaeltucker2511]

Great video

[@IFIXIT4U]

Thank you MT

[@jeanlawson9133]

I grease every time I mow....a couple of squirt's and high speed grease....has less sand. I imagine Molly would even be an upgrade...

[@JQUICK21]

Are there aftermarket spindles we can buy that eliminates this problem? Can you put bearings that are not sealed on these spindles? Or do we have to do what you did? Thanks!

[@joad47]

How do you know when the cavity is full of grease? It has to be completely full to get grease to the top bearing.....the bottom bearing will always be running in grease. If you don't know when the cavity is completely full and you continue to try and apply grease, won't you eventually start to push the bearings out? I've seen this procedure done in several KZbin video, but no one has addressed these questions. Thanks in advance

[@laredotech]

Do you happen to know what bearing i would need for the z655?

[@tomrogers302]

Question, is this a AM144608 spindle? If it is. Do you know the part number for the replacement bearings?

[@IFIXIT4U]

Its a different spindle. When you get your bearing out it will have the part number on it. Thank you

[@philliphall5198]

They are fooling people to think there the best but there far from it 😊