OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions on Rover Ride On Mower Rover ranger XC, height adjust

My dad has one of these.


Rover Ranger XC with an 11Hp briggs.

He bent the steering and what not and its sat in the shed for a few years pulled apart.

I put it back together but there is still an issue with the deck height adjustment.
If you grab the bar and pull it up it gets to about 6 before anything happens. So its really lifting to position 2, not high enough, keeps biting dirt.

Theres a shaft that the height lever is on, on the other end of it is a boss with a roll pin through it, on the boss is lever that goes to the deck. The roll pin is there, but there is movement between the two. Does the roll pin wear the shaft out???


I just thought i would ask if this was a common problem.

I would assume that with the roll pin removed the shaft with just pull out??


I am waiting for my Dad to get back to me with the model number etc off the machine before i look into chasing up the parts. Well once i know what parts i need.

Thanks, Bob.

Roll pins have to be an interference fit with both the shaft and the hub. The one you have has been overloaded, and has made the hole it "fits" in, oval in one or both parts. Consequently you have a lot of free movement of the height control lever. You also have slack in the system so the deck can bounce up and down without you moving the height lever. Essentially, the machine is useless until you fix that.

More likely than not the pin is still tight in some part of the hole, so to remove it you have to drive it out as if it was still working (which it is not). Select a pin punch of just the right size (slightly smaller than the original size of the hole in the hub), position it carefully over the end of the pin, and tap the pin out with a hammer. Roll pins are not tapered - it can be tapped out either way, unless someone has burred the end of it at some time.

Repairing the shaft and/or hub will be quite difficult if the damage is severe. If damage is slight, you just redrill the hole through both hub and shaft, simultaneously, with a larger drill to fit a larger pin. Your shaft is probably way past that, though, so you need to check whether there is room to reinstall the same size pin either further up the shaft or further down it. If that isn't possible, there are various crude and ugly solutions (drill a new hole at right angles to the original one, for example) or a good solution: obtain replacements for the damaged parts.

Almost always, when you have removed the pin, the hub can be slid off the shaft. The only exception is when you have to remove some other parts first for one reason or another. However the shaft is probably torn up and you will have to tap the hub off the end of the shaft, or pull it off with a two- or three-leg puller.

I looked in the parts listing and it does not even show the shafts in there.


It will be a little difficult to get apart i am thinking.

The height control shaft goes in from the right side as pictured above. It goes in probably 1/2-2/3 of the way across the base. Then on the other side is the lever for deck engagement and it is on the same plane and comes in and nearly butts up agaisnt the end of the height control lever.

The shaft has the better part of an 1/8th of a turn play in it.

I think the only fix is going to be removing the deck competely and then get that shaft out. The best option might then be to get some keyways cut.

First thing will be to dose it up with a good amound of degreaser, icky dirty thing it is.


I will be sure and get some pictures when im doing this job.


Bob.

I can't tell from the picture how much space you have Bob, but usually removing the deck doesn't seem to be a big job. Whether what is left of the shaft will be enough to still be strong enough after you cut a keyway, is hard to tell. A keyway would have been a much better way to design it, but it costs more to make. If they used a roll pin for a job like that though, they may have under-designed the rest of the machine as well. Are you sure it's worth fixing?

Im sure its worth fixing, its a $1000 mower, well it would be if its working right. Especially out bush where the old boy is.


Bob.

I'm probably preaching to the choir Bob, but what counts is the design and design execution, not the price. If it has low-grade engineering like that roll pin in more critical places - like inside the drive-axle - it can be a piece of semi-mobile scrap whatever its list price.

A long time ago my grandfather on impulse bought me an old junk car (a 1937 Austin "Big Seven") for the equivalent of $10. My father told me that if I'd put a plastic body on it and make it into a sports car, he'd pay all the costs and help with the work. A couple of years later it was finished and very nearly useless, for three reasons. First, the original design was ill-suited to any kind of high performance outcome. Second, it was worn out in every imaginable respect and parts were not available. Third I got carried away and over-tuned it (engine pic attached).



I told my father that for the same amount of money, work and time we could have restored an XK120 Jaguar and upgraded its engine to D type specification. He just shrugged - I'd had the learning experience he wanted while doing the conversion, and that was all he cared about.

If the whole of this mower has lousy engineering and has been hammered into the ground, like the height adjuster, you may be about to have a learning experience without any other point.

From what else i saw of the mower its in good order and i spent a fair bit of time under it.

Where it is, is more of a nuisance than what it is. The what i can fix, somehow. The remove the deck, drain the fluids and flip the thing on its side or stand it on its tail is the pain in the butt.


I have stick welder and know how to use it I have suggested to the old boy that he keep an eye open for something with more HP with a wider cut. Hes mowing probably 3 of 10 acres and that takes a while with a 28" 11Hp mower. But then i suppose its not as long as it takes with a BigBob, thats what hes using at the moment, i think last time he used the HRU196, all the Bobs were out of action, ive got two back on deck. Deutscher is on the way, pick that up next weekend.

I do get what you are saying. Ive gone and done the same thing myself. Splashed out $265 on a blown up Victa 8/34E that i will be able to fix, but at nearly $300 for a dead one (one went the other week, $290, looked like utter rusty Poo, missing the head and carb off the motor) when i will be lucky to double my money by the time i fix the rust in the deck and give the motor i allready had here a bit of a birthday.



Cheers, Bob.

Well, it should be possible to repair or replace the height adjuster shaft and use keyways instead of the silly overloaded roll-pin. Cutting the internal keyways in the hubs is a bit of a pain: you need either a slotter attachment for the milling machine, or one of those hobbing kits you use under a hydraulic press. Personally I don't have either.

I was going to get it out and tkae it into town to the engineering guy if i had no hope of sorting it myself.

You could probably fix it for nothing, Bob, by fitting two roll pins, at right angles to the original one, at the two ends of the hub. It would be twice as strong as when it was new - that might be strong enough. There's a good chance you'll find movement in the roll pin at the other end of the shaft, too. If so, you could fix it the same way. To get keyways cut in two hubs and both ends of the shaft seems like it would cost at least a couple of hundred dollars.

I was more thinking of either oversizing the roll pin, twice the size will mean however much extra surface area but will weaken the shaft as the hole will not have as much meat around it.


Or using the hole thats allready there, enlarged a bit. Grind flats on the boss and drill clean through one side of the boss and the shaft and then tap a thread in the other end of the boss and put an extrenal lock nut on it. Perhaps i could get a 6mm cap head screw in the hole. So then you have the pin arrangement with the clamping as well.


Whatever i do, i will have to be able to assemble it to get it back on the machine.



Cheers, Bob.

Putting a bolt through an enlarged hole was a standard way to deal with the problem in the old days Bob, but in the old days, shafts were big and hubs were massive chunks of cast iron or forged steel. As you said, it depends on how much metal you can safely remove, especially from the shaft. If the design engineer had been any good (which I doubt) the answer would have been "none". Hence the suggestion of putting in two roll pins of the original size, at opposite ends of the hub. That shouldn't make the shaft any weaker than it is now, while making the torsion joint twice as strong as when it was new.

Have to see when i get it out.


The old boy told me on the phone last night that its got no 2nd gear either.


I might just be leaning under with the welding stick in hand. Well after ive degreased it, its a bit of a mess.

Depending how it's designed, Bob, it might be practical to have one end of the shaft welded so long as the hub on the other end can be removed for dismantling.

As I've said before, whether it is worth fixing depends on whether it will be any good when it's fixed. The gearbox is most likely fixable, but making it strong enough not to fail again is another story.

Geabox does not really matter. All the other gears work. The old boy is a bit anal with mowing stuff, i doubt it will ever see grass thick enough to use 2nd gear.
Hes got the HRU196. Thats for round the house.
Hes got 3 Big bobs for the rest of the yard.
He wants a slasher for the stuff thats too hard for the big bob, hence the Deutscher.

The ride on will get an easy life.


My bodgy built PowerTorque Mustang did every kind of job and lived in the elements. First job on the cards was grass over knee high. Poor thing did that at least 5 times.

Heck if a Bob cant mow it you need to go buy a Billy Goat.

Hmmmm this almost seems like a let down.


Roll pin had busted off. Trying to remove the shaft dislodged the broken bits and the collar came off.

The old boy went and got a 1/4 bolt to replace the roll pin. Hes nearly got it all back together.






Cheers, Bob.

Bob, if he's used a high tensile bolt of the same diameter as the roll pin, it will be a lot stronger than the roll pin but the next overload will damage the shaft. A mild steel bolt probably won't damage the shaft. If the shaft wasn't damaged by shearing the roll pin, it was a really awful joint design and he's now upgraded it. So, things are better than new.

I'll close this thread.