Ol' Sears - 1975 Sears Suburban ST/16

Great stuff! You did a great job bringing it back last time and a even nicer job this time around!

The Sears has been pretty reliable now through the rest of the mow season. The Monarchs seem to be heading through still, I'll hold off my final mow till they filter out. Clover is getting pretty high.

I looked at this thread and I thought “Oh, Mighty renamed Grandpa?”

I feel old now…

Rustbucket Garage wrote:

I looked at this thread and I thought “Oh, Mighty renamed Grandpa?”

I feel old now…

It was grandpa, didn't care for that. Then Phoenix.... that didn't grow on me. I call it the ol' sears a lot, so that's what it is for now.

Dangit... went to mow today and on my second lap the center mandrel seized up. Hope it was the belt and not the bearing.

That sucks, sorry to hear that!

Part of me wonders between the blades being unobtainium and the spindles if it might be advantageous to consider a swap to some other spindle design? I think scag makes one with taper bearings and a solid casting.

Just an update... It was the bearing.  Grease somehow hardened at the top and starved the upper bearing until it grenaded.  The O'l Sears is out of mower duty now for who knows how long.  Glad I got the Kubota fixed.

Let's teeter totter back to this.  With the Kubota back down, I got over myself and the tractor funk going on and was able to quickly fix the mower deck on the Ol' Sears.  Seems to work better than it did the last time I rebuilt the center spindle.  That's good.  Gave it a go in the back yard and worked great.  Quiet too!



I really need to fix that stripe on this side.  Heat kind of shrunk it. 

I absolutely loved the way my sears mowed. Best cutting tractor i ever had. How come you have hubs on the front of this one? Just for replaceable bearings?

This is the tractor I put hubs on the originally time! Back Jan 2015 I believe.





I like the look, and I hate dealing with the greasy bearings to change tires. This one I originally put in zerks in the hub and removed the inner dust covers. Those bearings still failed. Cheap overseas junk. I ended up just cleaning the bore out and left sealed bearings from PNG in there. Haven't looked at them again.

OK, figured out how I lost my grease and busted my bearing today.

Mowed today, it was doing Great!

Decided to tackle the field that killed the kubota.  The Sears is so awesome I was able to mow it in HIGH gear 3/4 throttle.  Got it done in about 1 hr.  Compared to 2 hrs with the kubota, but that could be due to it's other issues.

Got back, cleaned it up.  Went to check grease and noticed my center mandrel nut was about to fall off.

Removed the deck..

Center spindle was bouncing up and down the shaft due to the back out nylock nut.  Tried to tighten it back down and realised it stripped out the shaft and nut.  Ugh...  The spindle is about toast anyway so I decided to do a little Jerry rigging.  Enter another 3/4 grade 8 bolt with just a little different thread pitch.  Redneck locktight in full effect.  That nut isn't coming loose.  I also put some thread locker on the set screws.  They were coming loose too.

Reinstalled the deck and gave it a try and appears golden!



I'll probably keep an eye out for another deck for the future.