How to get rid of football stripes on Fairways.

 So lately my fairways just haven't looked up to par. I have ground all 3 of them with new bed knives. the cut is great but the back two reels are leaving stripes. I decided to try putting these collars on the front rollers on the two rear reels. Each reel takes 6 collars.

The collars go on the 3 outside grooves. Be careful when tightening the screws. The directions say leave a .030 gap on each side of the collar. Follow the directions or you will crack the collars at the screw holes.

Setting up Toro 648 Aerifier with dimple tines

 



 

 Ok so after a bit of pressure washing and letting it dry. Getting ready to run the dimple tines across a few greens.. I will say that if you don't have a Toro 648 you need to get one. Hands down the best Aerifier on the market.

 

 First pull off the solid tine blocks.

 Next pull off the turf guards and hold downs. I just leave the nuts off just in case. Last thing I need is for one of them to come off on a green. My luck a greens mower will find it.

Put the dimple tines and blocks on machine. I will post a video next week of machine in action.

Its that time of Year. Putting Solid Rollers on Toro Flex 21

Now that the hot weather has arrived its time to put solid rollers on the greens mowers. This helps reduce stress and also helps the greens mowers not dig into the turf.

 First loosen up the roller pinch bolt on each side of the reel.

 Slide the roller to the left and then remove the groomer adjustment nut (if you have groomers).

 Remove height adjuster bolt. You only need to take of one side.

 Slide the height adjuster bracket over enough that roller will clear bracket. Slide out roller. Put in solid roller and put back together in reverse order. Little tip here - tighten height bracket before tightening the roller pinch bolts. This will keep you from bowing adjuster brackets. Which can put stress on reel.

 Now is also a good time to adjust reel and face bed knife if needed.

 Check the contact and adjust until reel cuts paper. I faced the bed knives on all the greens mowers. I just ground them last week so still cutting great.

Very important that you check the height of cut afterwards. Anytime you loosen and remove stuff never assume that the height hasn't changed. The solid rollers are about ..020 bigger than the grooved rollers.

Grinding reel on Toro GM 1000

Now that the drum bearings have been replaced time to grind the reel.

 Ok so 1st thing I do is loosen the spring tension nut.

 Remove bed bar bolt.

 Grinding top face on bed knife. I grind the top face on this bed knife at 5*

 Short video of grinder in action.

 Next grind front face of bed knife. I grind the front face at 5*. This will vary depending on the type of grass you have.

 Mower all set up in grinder. Made sure that my reel wasn't coned. All is good so now time to grind. This Bernhard grinder only takes 2 min on the touch up cycle. It is a lot faster than my old Foley but both grinders have their good points and bad points. We will talk about this in another post.

 Putting bed knife back in mower. Hand tighten the bed bar bolt only Do Not Use impact gun. Next hand tight the nut down so that the washers still turn but aren't flopping around.

Tighten up the bed bar tension spring. You want to bottom out the spring but not to the point that you mess up the spring. Then back the nut of 1 turn. Now set light contact on reel and make sure its cuts paper. Reset height of mower. 

Replacing bad drum bearing on Toro GM 1000

So I thought today would be a good day to grind my Tee mowers (GM 1000). So every time that I grind a reel I always check the reel and roller bearings. In this case the drive drum acts as the rear roller. I found a bad drum bearing on the right side. Here are the procedures for removing the belt pulley to replace drum bearing.

 Pull the cover off. Sometimes you may need to remove the tension of the drive belt to see if the bearing is bad.

 In the picture above I have put a 1' wrench between drum and frame. Turn the drum to engage wrench on to drum shaft.

 Next take off tire axle if you use them. This requires a 7/8" wrench. This side the axle loosens by counter clockwise.

 Next loosen the belt tensioner with two 1/2" wrenches.

 Using an 1 1/2" wrench I took the drum pulley off. This one turns clockwise to loosen. when in doubt look on the pulley there is an arrow in the direction of tighten.

 Next remove the washer and then the spacer.

 Remove bolts using 1/2" socket. Also good time to clean off the fragments of belt and grass build up.

 Remove old bearing. Sometimes you may have to use a puller but I got lucky on this one.

 Install new bearing.

 I like to use a little bit of blue lock tite. Warning never use red lock tite here. You wont like the results if the bearing fails again. Don't say I didn't warn you.

 After looking at the belt I figured I am already in here so I might as well go ahead and replace the belt.

 Notice that the adjuster isn't on the mower. I take it off because the belt is a tight fit.

 Set the tension on the belt. Its pretty tight with the adjuster in the loose position. Normally this is where I leave it for the first mow. Then recheck after it comes back in. Also good time to grease the bearing.

So here is what was on the inside of the cover. Might as well go ahead and clean it out while its off.

Problems with Bernhard Anglemaster 4000DXi

So the problem that I am having is that it doesn't grind Toro bed knives even. Grinder takes off to much of the bed knife in the center. So when I mount the bed knife back up in the reel the contact is great on the edges but as you travel towards the center the contact gets lighter and lighter. After a few lengthily talks on the phone with Bernhard I still haven't gotten a solution. Tuesday the Bernhard rep came out and did a few adjustments. We thought all was good but still the same problem. The picture below is what he adjusted. It is the bolt under the rear rail.

 After adjusting the bolt it seemed like it was better but still isn't right. To prove that the grinder isn't working properly I took 2 bed knives that I ground over to our Sister course. Ground them on a Foley and sure enough it took about 15 min to get it true. The Foley started contact on the edges.

I put a straight edge across the bar the bed knife mounts on and I noticed that the bar has a high spot right in the middle between the two magnets. Bernhard tells me that the high spot doesn't matter. The Bernhard Rep will be here today to figure out the issue.

So the Rep is here pulled grinder apart making sure everything is parallel and true. Hopefully he finds a solution today. I will post more on this as he finds out more info. 

 

 

Update on Grinding issues. After Chris pulled the grinder apart and started from scratch he got everything back square. Test ground 4 bed knives and no issues now. So a big thanks goes out to Chris with Bernhard for taking care of the issue.

Back lapping reels on a Toro 3250D

 This is our approach mower. The cut was a bit off yesterday. Just looked a bit shaggy.

 This what the reel was cutting like. Not terrible but not great. After adjusting the reels I just wasn't what I consider a great cut. I backed the contact off a bit because I am going to lap the reels.

 Ok so got the mower outside. Put it into back lap mode turned the reel speed down to lowest setting. I am using 120 grit compound. I like the quality of cut that I get from it. Remember if it takes longer than 5 min to lap then its time to grind the reels. This mower took about 3 min to lap.

After letting the reels dry after washing them off. I adjusted the reels to the lightest contact possible while still cutting paper. Also went ahead and checked the height and adjusted as necessary. this was a good time to grease any fittings that the mower has.

Adjusting reels on 3100D

Setting the clearance between reel and bed knife. With a little bit of luck it will cut paper with minimal contact. I haven't ground these reels in about 3 months so may need to back lap the reels.

 Looks really good cutting paper like a fresh ground reel. I check my reels after each cut so I can get the most out them before having to grind again.

Replacing bearings in Toro 5010 5" Reels

Checking over reel and found bad reel bearings.

Best way to remove reel is from left side. Take left housing bolts out and remove front and rear roller brackets. Slide side housing off. You may need to tap cover with a rubber mallet to get off. Then pull reel out of right housing

Ok now the fun part. You will need a puller to get the bearing off. It is press fitted onto the shaft.

Puller with a 3/8 drive short extension placed in reel drive so that the puller doesn't damage the splines.

Wipe grease off shaft. Do not use sandpaper or anything else to clean shaft. Bearing must be a press fit.

This is what I use to put bearing on with. It is a bearing installer for Toro rollers. Part # TOR 192660

Before you put the reel back in housing be sure to loosen the lock screw for the endplay nut. Then back nut off 2 turns.

I like to use the alignment tool that came with the mower to put the reel back in. just makes the process easier and you don't run the chance of damaging the bearing or housing.

All back together. Now time to adjust the endplay nut. I just hand tighten the nut until no endplay is felt. After the unit has been out once I recheck the endplay and adjust reel to bedknife contact.