craftman rider one blade is froze up see details?

Question

One blade I turn by hand the other one is froze up from the pully down,sprayed with wd 40 but no luck

Answer 1

The spindle has gone bad. Those spindles one cannot replace the bearings. They are "welded up" units and you will need to replace the entire spindle. You cannot remove the pulley and disassemble the shaft unit. The shaft and pulley are welded together for safety reasons.

Yes, they are expensive, A spindle for you unit costs about $75. It includes the lower mount, the shaft, and pulley. The whole thing is assembled as a weldment same as the original one.

To get that off of there. Take the deck off the mower. Remove the blade. Then remove those 4 bolts, they are 5/16 diam with lock nuts. The whole guard and spindle come loose and the spindle is removable thru the top as that hole in the deck itself has a large enough hole for the blade mount to pass.

This is a very common problem on deck mowers, so you are not alone in this problem. Those bearings in there are prelubed and sealed for life, thus no zerk fittings to grease them. They last about 7 or 8 seasons if you are lucky.

Feel lucky you got a Sears machine. I hear the John Deere spindles are now about $125/150 each.

Answer 2

The bearings in the spindle are frozen. You will need to pull the mower deck off and remove the blade and pully. You should than be able to remove the shaft. From there you can get the bearing out and replace them. You can go to sears parts on the internet and get the part numbers for your deck. There are cheaper places on line to buy the parts than sears. You will need two bearings and possibly the shaft depending on how scored up it is. You could also buy a complete spindle from sears but they are kind of pricey. The job overall isn't as bad as it may sound.

Answer 3

The bearings are available individually. Changing them is not a big deal as they are field servicable. Just dont forget to put the spacer ring on top of the upper bearing!