OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions On Victa Ride On Mower Frames Deck Bearings

A mate rang me a while ago saying that somebody had dropped off a Victa 16hp ride on mower that had stopped cutting and for him to have a look at and see if he could fix it. Apparently the deck bearings have collapsed and this is why the belt has come off. When I told him he would have to remove the deck to replace the bearings his head went into a bit of a meltdown. I am heading up there tomorrow to finish off fitting a new motor in his Greenfield and I just wanted to know if anybody had any info on these Victas before I get up there. He was muttering things like it is near impossible to remove the deck, but I think it would be near impossible to replace the bearings without removing the deck. Seeing it is twin blade I'm assuming it will have 3 sets of deck bearings. Any thoughts?

Not familiar with Victa's but are they just another Husqvarna clone now or are they still the Murray/Stihl/Viking set up? Either way, dropping the deck off any of them is not that big a deal, generally only three or four connection points and a control cable. I doubt any of them would drop far enough to easily remove the spindles without removing the deck but idler pulleys may be removable with it in situ.

Thanks Trev, my mate always goes into a bit of a flap if it is outside his comfort zone. My trip up there today came unstuck because half way there I realized the fuel tank I had made up for his Greenie was still sitting on the bench at home so turn around and come back, 2 hours driving just for fun.

I have now found out that this machine is a 4016TRX so that is some progress and you are able to remove the spindle housing without removing the deck. Next issue is the front wheels apparently only have nylon bushes. I can't believe this should be the case as this machine has a 16.5 hp motor sitting up front. Anybody have an thoughts on this? I have looked around and haven't found much info on them and not having see it makes it harder

Depends on the bush material Norm. If it is acetal polymer, marketed under the brand name Delrin, it is virtually indestructible and can be used to make bearings, bushes and gears. It is wonderful stuff, machines like steel in the lathe to make bushes for things that are no longer supported by manufacturers.

Thanks Trev, they have obviously worn as he wouldn't have pulled them out. Would whoever the manufacture of this mower was, would they have fitted these and why?

G'day folks,
Norm, the answer to that one is, that Victa ride-ons have always been US-made rebadges. MTD for the earliest, more lately followed by Murray and Noma.

And these brands are definitely not from the premium end of that market - so it's all 'bout cost-saving!

Oh the joy of Murray spindles. Sometimes they can be rebuilt other times it is simply best to replace the complete spindle as replace bearing ride loose unless you add a little knurling to the housing bearing locations.

Murray had owned Noma so basically was the same manufacture. But now the original Murray manufacture is gone. Briggs and Stratton owns the Murray Rights but they do subcontract out it out to two other manufactures besides themselves. That would be MTD and Husqvarna so the new mowers can be manufactured by either of the three; at least it is noted on the serial number tag. Unlike some buy outs Briggs is still providing many of parts for the older Murray mowers.

But as Gadge said they are consumer grade mowers so they are cheaply made.

As for front wheel bushings depending on the axle and hub size you might be to upgrade those bushings to bearings that ring retainer or flange. Actually a couple styles out now for some of the replacements. But normally those plastic bushing are fairly good but heavy use and heavy loads due wear them out. Much cheaper to replace before they get down to metal to metal contact. Most wear is preventable if the user just grease the axle every once every blue moon or so. You know how well that gets done.

Some owners I think never heard of routine maintenance.

I went to a farm clearance auction on the weekend AVB and I'm pretty sure none of the machines offered for sale had seen a spanner in the past 25 years so it's not just backyarders that haven't heard of routine maintenance. :-)
Those worn bushes are probably just nylon, not Delrin Norm and they would have fitted them because it is about one tenth the price.

Very possible. And hopefully my Avatar is back up as Photobucket is being a real pain @ demanding $400 per year for my images to shown switching hosts.

Standard procedure seems to dictate if something breaks repair with wire, if the wire breaks or another part breaks add more wire. If this third attempt fails either add more wire or put it on ebay.
AVB you are not the first to be stung by Photobucket with this $400 sting. Give fish food and eventually you will be able to hook them and reel them in.
Anyway back to the Victa, got the new wheel and cutter deck bearings in and easy to see why the deck bearings fail, they are way too small for that sort of work, just plain dumb, about the same size as a little full crank Victa.
The issue now is the deck doesn't lift up at the front, so something there has been bodged up by a previous owner. Current owner thinks it might have been like that when he bought out. I can't see what or how it is meant to lift. The owner is going to see if he can get a manual when he heads back to Sydney next week. Anyway my mates little Greenie with its new motor now works like a treat and he is happy to be rid of his smokey Briggs.

Probably those little 5/8" ( close to 16 MM) id bearings or the Murrays I used to see where this and they were bad to bend spindle shafts upon impacts.

The old baling wire trick I have seen lots of times here but only seen one walk behind with the blade duct tape on. Took a college educated one to do that one.

Hi AVB, They are certainly well undersized for the job, as you say the spindle is about 5/8" crazy stuff

Are they the cast alloy spindle housings? The spider on the dead Murray I have here is as thin as cooking foil and smashed to pieces by the previous tenant when he hit a small steel peg.

You got it Trev they are so totally undersized it is obvious to see why they would not be capable of a lot of work for what is supposed to be a decent sized cutting machine. Easy to see why they fall to bits, but I guess it has a lot to do with the people who buy this sort of machine. I assume they were a cheap machine for the cutting size and as we know most people do minimal maintenance, use it till it breaks, take it to a mower shop, find out how much it is going to cost and they then realize it is going to cost more to repair than it is to buy another one. The little Greenie I got for my mate for $180 had just had $1100 in repairs spent on it before the owner gave up and went out and bought a new one. I still spent another $300 in parts on it and I have just put a new motor on it. Now it is a good machine, but the labour spent on it has been massive

Customers never seen to understand the labor part of the bill. They think we should charge like they get paid. Forget the cost of tools, supplies, and other shop related items that are use during the repairs. The time to repair thing a can rather long sometimes as we fix things that have left undone for so long. As you said we got to undo a lot makeshift repairs; sometimes just to get to real problem.

I just finishing up on an ATV where I spent 4 hours going over it find out just what was wrong and the customer say I just want the carburetor repaired. Another 2 hours getting carb done and putting the brakes and wheels back on. NO brakes, front disc pads are down metal to metal contact, rear brake assembly rust and corroded due someone not putting it back together correctly. The water seals were installed incorrectly, Hand brake cable rusted in place. The repair cost currently is $500 and if I had gotten the brakes done too it was closer to $1400. At least it moves now freely instead having to pull through lock down rear brake.

Customer griping that he only paid $500 for nice 2001 model and expected the repairs to be very cheap. He should took to a shop charges $80-$90 hr instead my $40. Repairs never were cheap on these as they are abused by the users.

Now back to Murray setup. Yes they are low end consumer mowers meant to cut well maintained lawns not of lawns here. About 20 yrs they introduced Bradford pear flowering trees. These are terrible at put roots above ground for the mower decks to hit. I repair a lot deck damage from impacts. I had one deck that the hanger had ripped from the deck that looked like had open a beer can and the pull tab made it most open before breaking. Customer fussed about the costs to repair but was happy. I put over four hours into getting back together. Two yrs later he rips off a gauge wheel bracket and ask if I knew how to weld.

I've just got a 2010 Rover Raider 14/38 ride-on mower in to replace the deck belt and it is such a flimsy mower! The panels are extremely thin and it keeps chewing through deck belts due to the system not allowing different heights with the belt at the right tension. With the height low the belt slips and runs off the pulleys and when raised the belt is far too tight.

The owner wishes he kept the old Greenfield and spent the $3,000 on doing it up rather than buying the Rover. However, at the time he thought the Rover mower would be more comfortable and have a better turning circle compared to the Greenfield and being an Aussie brand it would last as long as the Greenfield. Sadly it turned out to be a cheap imitation with red paint and a Rover sticker. More than a few times has the owner thought of running over it with the tractor!

An interesting note is the belt part number matches most MTD mowers including the Kioti Daedong.

AVB, I agree 100% over customers not wanting to pay the labour to do the job. The don't see that you have to cover the cost of the tools and shop electricity etc.

Yet they'll take their car to a dealer at $120/hr but can't afford to pay for their mower or ATV to be fixed. Around here, if the customer has a Mercedes of any age, they are usually the hardest ones to get money from!

I find I have to quote on the job first as they get really upset over it all.

LRT, just out of curiosity, the owner of this mower says he was charged $280 by Deutscher (Victa agent in Ballarat)for the supply only of the left had cutter belt which he had to get a bloke in Linton to fit. Sounds a bit excessive to me but he is adamant that is what it cost him.
One of the biggest problems repairing this sort of machinery is they are a compact/complex machine, very difficult to get at most of it, not designed for easy maintenance and then add in wet grass that corrodes every part and then the customer expects you to be able to just wave a wand over it and all is fixed in a few minutes. I have 2 hands, 2 feet, a lifetime of experience and I can't make them go any faster than anybody else but most people do not understand this or don't want to. You will never make a living out of repairing them because you can never charge enough for the hours spent

Hi Norm,

For a genuine belt that could be right. I get nearly all my parts from Deustcher and haven't found their prices to be excessive compared to other dealers.

Do you know roughly what year and deck size it is?

If it uses the Victa CH82248A belt, the price he paid appears to be similar if he bought a genuine belt.

An aftermarket GA Spares BEL241 is $77 https://www.[Censored].com.au/victa-cutter-drive-belt-ch82248a.html

Powertoolspares in Lincolnshire UK want �115 for what I presume is a genuine Victa belt. http://www.powertoolspares.com/tool...refoldmodels19871995/fg406-15300/spares/

Hi LRT, I would assume if it was from Deutscher it would be a genuine one. Looks to me to be veed both sides. The machine is a 40/16 but as for what year no idea, but it is a dark green one, not sure if this identifies the model but all the ones I have seen are this dark green. It is the same as the second one on this page the 4016TRX
http://rideonmowershop.com.au/brands/victa

It's interesting it is V'd both sides.

I've got a Stihl/Viking 42" ride-on sitting here with a dead motor and it's deck is really simple. I'd take it any day over a modern John Deere/Sabre mower. The only issue I've had with it when I was doing heavy duty mowing and landscaping work was the wheel slip as it didn't have a locking diff.

The Tecumseh/Peerless 6 speed hydro transmission has handled towing a loaded 300kg trailer up rocky slopes and carting 50kg+ bluestone blocks on a custom built bolt on carrier.

By the way, the chassis is still in good condition without any cracks after having weights on the front and frequently driving on only the rear wheels when carting the bluestone.

The only reason I stopped using it was when the Briggs was blowing all the oil out the breather ever 15 minutes. (This motor had significant blow-by since new by the way with no assistance from the dealer)

Then I bought a second hand Greenfield to use for the heavy duty mowing & hired with the intent to purchase a Vermeer mini skid steer for the landscaping work until the customer lost all their money in the collapse of the Banksia Financial Group.

NormK, Provide the crossing of the 4016TRX is correct then it is a Murray 40379x88 with what hey call a double deck design. Haven't any here of this but the following site's IPL might help figuring what you need on the hangers.

Murray 40379x88 IPL - 1999

Thanks AVB, that is the deck alright but the exploded diagram doesn't show me the front section of how it raises and lowers. Anyway my mate has fitted a turnbuckle up the front so he could set the height in a fixed position so I believe it is working satisfactorily at the moment. It is just used to run over a few acres to keep the grass down to about 4" to keep the council off his back.
Thanks again for your help

Ah I see what you're referring to. It is rearward tension of the deck set by the rear adjusters sets front tilt. It is not a very good lift system at all as only lift in front can be set by adjusting the rear. The interconnect bars forces at the rear are use to force to tilt the deck up as the height is set higher.

As I said a very poor design. I have not seen that lift used much any more but still have some Husqvarna mowers that uses a similar system with the same problems.

Thinking overnight this is suspended deck design. Many of the suspended deck design have replace that stiff plate with a simple adjustable rod where you can change the amount of pull that applied to the deck. I thinking more like suspension bridge where the deck finds a happy place and floats around this point. Think of it like rope being held both ends with board in the middle. Shorten the rope one end and the board changes it angle as more weight is at the short side allowing the long side of the rope to raise up as it has less weight to support.

These decks tends to scalp the high points between wheel base and skip over low spots. It takes gauge wheels to prevent some of the scalping. This design works best on fairly level lawns and not ones with lots dips and bumps.

One good thing about the design though is not as prone to deck damage from hitting tree roots where floating design tends to get a lot impact damage. I know because this because I have own both designs. I spend a lot time repairing the floating front wheel brackets because tree roots.