OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions On Ride On Mowers Frames husqvarna repair question

Hi all,
I've got Husqvarna ride-on, LTH2142DR, almost a year old. I'm below average at fixing things, and I'm looking for advice on whether this is something I'll be able to fix myself.

The mower stopped mowing the other day. Engine fine, no cutting. I took a look underneath and found the belt was wrapped around one of the blades, and the other blade was sitting on the ground. It looks to me like the blade is attached to a roundish piece above it which is attached to the deck? Well the blade that's now touching the ground, the piece above it has sheared off and isn't attached to the deck anymore.

Sorry for the bad explanation, if that doesn't make sense ask me for more details.

Is anyone familiar with this model?

Are the round pieces that hold the blades normally attached to the deck, because if they're a one-piece unit then I'm going to need a new deck.

Also, does anyone know if this is common for the belt to come off? I'm assuming it got loose over a period of time, but the machine isn't even a year old and I only have an acre so it's not working all that hard.

Thanks. Appreciate any advice & suggestions.

The most important question is, what is that machine's warranty status? It sounds as if it has probably broken rather than fallen apart, and since the machine is nearly new, it isn't the ideal example to practice on if it is under warranty.

To get anywhere with discussing the problem, we would need some pictures of the machine, including specific shots of the affected parts.

For your general information, there are usually two engine-driven belts: one drives the cutter and the other the transmission, and thence the back wheels. The cutter system is mounted on a shaft and bearings attached to the deck. The bearings support the shaft and enable it to rotate. At the top of the shaft near the bearings is a V-belt pulley, attached to the shaft. Below the pulley, also attached to the shaft, is the blade disc, which is simply a plate to which the blades are attached. The shaft, pulley and blade disk are all rigidly attached together. It is unclear from your description where the separation has occurred - it sounds as if either the blade disc has broken where it attaches to the shaft, or the shaft's bearing housing has broken out of the cutting deck, leaving the whole shaft subassembly detached from the mower. If that happened many bad things would occur, including destroying the belt, but the main problem would be the damage to the deck and bearing housing, which are expensive parts.

The warranty says twenty four months, and twelve months for accessories/attachments. But I thought something like this would be called wear & tear, and not covered by warranty?

I called the people I bought it off, they're busy and can't look at it now, they said to call back in a couple of weeks. I know how busy they were this time last year when I bought it, so I don't think they'll be able to repair it til sometime late November, maybe December.

The question is what has broken and why. If the bearing housing has broken out of the mower deck, it could perhaps be caused by hitting a good-sized stump or pipe and keeping on driving, so the side of the blade plate was pushed so far sideways that it bent, then mangled and broke, the deck. If you didn't have that kind of collision, it would be more likely to have been a fatigue failure of the deck around the bearing housing, and that would be likely to be a result of poor design, manufacture or assembly.

Please post some pictures so we can see what we are talking about here. If the deck and bearing housing are casualties, the cost of this will be so high that missing a couple of months' mowing should be the least of your concerns.

Pictures coming soon.
I didn't have that kind of collision, and the deck itself appears unharmed and not bent.

Okay, here's a photo. Taken from the right side, which is the broken blade side. You can see the blade itself sitting low, almost touching the ground? The arrow points to the piece which, on the other blade, sits flush with the deck - I think that piece is attached to the deck in a hexagon shape, attached to a circular hole in the deck, not sure how it's attached though, not welded.

I need more pictures, to understand what I'm looking at. It looks as if that pic is taken through the grass discharge chute, toward the blade. It also looks as if there is no blade plate, or swing-back blades, but rather a single one-piece blade ("ninja blade"), and its length is the full cutting-width of the mower. It may be mounted on a boss on the bottom of the shaft, and the bearing housing may extend all the way down from the center of the deck to that boss. The bearing housing would then be bolted to the deck, and the shaft would continue above the deck to the V belt pulley. The bearing housing may be sitting vertically, and only the blade is tilted. I need to see a picture of where the blade mounts on the boss on the bottom of the shaft, so I can see whether the blade is bent, or it has come loose on the boss and is in the last stages of falling off the mower. It may have dealt a fatal blow to the deck, above the right side of the grass chute, slicing into it several inches. When it did that it may have cut the belt.

FWIW, if the blade came loose and trashed the deck and the belt, a year after the mower was sold new, I think this will not be a warranty repair. This is a pity because I think that deck is a goner.

I need more pictures, to understand what I'm looking at.
Okay, I'll try to take some more later today.

It looks as if that pic is taken through the grass discharge chute, toward the blade.
Yes, i was holding up the grass discharge chute with my other hand.

a single one-piece blade ("ninja blade"), and its length is the full cutting-width of the mower.
No, there are two blades, on each side of the mower. The left hand side blade is fine, still connected to the deck. The right side blade is pictured.

The blade appears to be mounted on a shaft which goes up and through the deck. On the left side, the shaft is attached to the deck at the point where it enters through it. On the right side, it's no longer attached and it looks like it has sheared off.

The belt is not damaged, just off.

From what you've said, it sounds like I should definitely be giving this to Husqvarna to repair, whether it's under warranty or not?

So, this is a twin-cutter deck, and only one of the two cutter systems has been damaged - the other one is still able to rotate and the blade runs straight on that one?

I think you have said that the right-side bearing housing, complete with shaft, belt pulley and blade, is no longer attached to the deck. So, presumably either the mounting bolts fell off, or the housing or deck is broken where the two should be bolted together.


(This is a top view of your cutter bearing housing, showing the belt drive pulley and the mounting bolts that hold the housing to the deck.)

That suggests the reason the ninja blade is not parallel to the ground, is that the entire bearing housing is not vertical, but is tilted laterally relative to the deck. The ninja blade is still at right angles to the bearing housing? I can't see from the above photograph because it is lateral to the mower, and the tilt is lateral also and therefore does not show.

If that guessed description as to what has happened is correct, please ensure that the next batch of pictures show the top of the bearing housing, below the belt pulley, where it should be bolted to the deck but now isn't. I'm trying to figure out whether the bolts simply fell out, or the housing or deck broke, thus causing the two to separate.

Here are two photos of the good undamaged side.
A long shot and a close up.

Thanks for the questions you're asking, they're really helping me to sort out what's happened

In the close up pic, you can see that the pulley is at the top of the shaft.
The shaft is bolted to the deck with four bolts, they're visible but not very clear in the photo. And the blade is attached to the shaft underneath the deck.

In the damaged side, the shaft has sheared off at the point of the four bolts. The four bolts are still attached to the deck, but the shaft is no longer attached to the deck and has dropped through the shaft hole in the deck.

As far as I can tell the deck is undamaged.
On the good side the blade seems okay, it spins cleanly and I can't see any damage.
On the damaged side the blade also seems okay, although it's hard to be sure.

So I think that what I need is a new shaft, and bolts (plus a check of blades and general service).

What I'm calling the "shaft" is the circular piece visible in the pic above that holds the pulley, is bolted to the deck, and holds the blade underneath. What is that really called, is that the bearing housing?

Yes, that is the bearing housing. The shaft is a round solid piece of steel inside it. The pulley is attached to the shaft, not the bearing housing. Here is a drawing of the assembly, from the illustrated parts list:

Item 13 is the shaft, Item 14 is the bearing housing. Item 15 is a ball bearing. There is another ball bearing already on Item 13 - looks as if you can't buy it separately from the shaft.

Can you take some pictures of the damaged bearing housing please, both from above and below the deck? I need to understand exactly which piece has broken, and how. I also need to verify that there is no damage to the deck.

It looks as if the bolts holding the whole spindle assembly have come loose, allowing the spindle assembly to break itself free, since it looks like the mousing is broken. My boss also broke one in a similar fashion by running over a brick, but you definatly know when someting like that happens.

The first picture seems to show the whole bearing housing having dropped down below the deck Joe, but I can't see the four projecting bolt bosses that are parts of that casting - they don't seem to be there in that picture. I want to see decent pictures of that bearing housing, and the deck around the hole it used to mount on. That way we'll find out whether the four bosses broke off the casting, or a chunk of the deck broke out and dropped down with the casting, or as you say the four bolts fell out and for some reason I can't see the bosses in that picture.

That diagram is really useful.
Number 14 is the broken piece. The bolt holes, along with the bolts, are still attached to the deck. The rest of number 14 is not.

I'll try and remove it all from under the mower tomorrow, then take some better photos of the pieces.

More tomorrow, and thanks again for helping out like this.

There appear to be two damaged components: the bearing housing, which Husqvarna calls "Housing, Mandrel", part number 532 18 72-81, and the deck, which they call "Mower Deck Assembly, 42"", part number 532 43 98-17. There seems to be some ground for suspecting that the design of that housing is not good, and this may have been a factor in the fracture. The fracture in turn caused the destruction of the deck when the blade hit the top of the grass discharge port. When you have the complete housing assembly removed, and we see some close-up pics of the fractures of the attachment points, and the condition of the deck around the housing's mounting holes, we can discuss this further.

For your own interest you may care to download the entire illustrated parts list for your mower, from here:

http://m.husqvarna.com/ddoc/HUSI/HUSI2012_AAaa/HUSI2012_AAaa__96041023601.pdf

(It's free.)

There is something else I'd like to clear up. I have the impression from something you said, that the mower may have been running with a broken blade. If you did that, it would fatigue and break the bearing housing in exactly the manner it has been broken. It shouldn't happen, because there would be a very noticable vibration of the whole machine if it ran with a broken blade.

Please post pictures of the blade, whether broken or not.

Obviously if it ran with a broken blade, that constitutes abuse and would not be covered by warranty unless the blade itself was defective and that is why it broke.

From what I can see (without having taken anything apart yet) the blade is undamaged, and the deck is undamaged. Mind you I can't see the underside of the deck.

I'll have a go at dismantling the housing mandrel & blade on the weekend, and I'll load up photos when I've done that.

Thanks.

The feature inside the red circle looks like a huge gash in the deck to me. It may just be the camera angle - perhaps you could photograph it from a different angle so I can make a different interpretation?

If the blade is not damaged, I don't see what would have caused the Mandrel Housing to have broken. It is a fairly major component, produced by expensive tooling, so it seems unlikely they are regularly snapping like carrots on all the Husqvarna mowers out there, especially since I haven't seen any specific complaints about it.

Here is a suggested approach to dismantling the the Mandrel Housing - you need the right tools, plus care and patience, and I suggest you stop whenever in doubt and come back here with some photographs rather than applying brute force. The aluminium housing is easily damaged (not too important, since it's broken anyway) and the shaft and bearings are not all that robust either.

First, you will need to remove the belt pulley (32), which is held on by a retaining nut (33), but the pulley is also likely to be a tight fit on the shaft (13). According to the illustration there is no drive key. I suggest you hold the blade (wear gloves and wrap the blade in thick cloth as well) while you undo the nut with a suitable ring spanner or socket. See if the pulley can then be pulled or levered upward off the shaft. You also need to remove the spacer (31). Having removed those parts from the top, remove the bolt (8) that holds the blade on the shaft, by holding the blade again and using a socket spanner. You are then ready to remove the shaft (13) from the mandrel housing (14) by placing the housing over something like a block of metal with the right sized hole in it to clear the outside of the oil seal at the bottom of the shaft, while providing good support all the way around the housing. Normally you would then apply downward force to the top of the shaft with a hydraulic press, but I'm guessing you don't have one. If so, you will need to place a piece of hardwood on the top, threaded end of the shaft while supporting the full circumference of the bottom of the housing on the block of metal with the hole in it. Tap the top of the piece of hardwood with a hammer, to drive the shaft downward. There will be moderate resistance to moving the shaft because the top bearing (15) will be a tight fit on it, and the bottom bearing (shown on the diagram but not identified separately) will be tight in the housing. The shaft needs to slide through the top bearing, and will probably take the bottom bearing out with it when it moves downward. It is just possible though that it will slide through the bottom bearing as well as the top bearing, leaving both of them in the housing when it comes out.

If you can remove the shaft and bearings from the broken housing without damage, and if the deck is undamaged, you may just need a replacement Housing, Mandrel from your Husqvarna dealer to get the mower back into action.

Spindle assembly.
Spindle housing.
Spindle shaft, or even just shaft.
And the pulley. Also called a sheave i think it is. Grumpy will know.




Do you have a fair to good assortment of tools??? Well actually you only need a few basic spanners and sockets.

I would assume the blades are the same length on both sides.
Remove the blade off the busted spindle. Fit that blade to the good spindle. Spin it by hand, use a magnetic something off the fridge or just the edge of the deck or something to give you a refference point and watch closely. You need to make sure that the blade is still spinning flat. If it is it is good to use again, if not you will need a new one.



The spindle housing is busted. Undo the 4 bolts. Remove the assembly from the deck.
Take your assortment of bits into the dealer and tell them you want another under warranty and a new belt as well and the blade if that is no good.
Two months to fix something under warranty, that is just plain rude.



By the look of it your only issue with DIY will be doing up the blade snf pulley bolts.