BX25D Rookie
Active member
Lifetime Member
Equipment
2011 BX 25LB-R (dirt work, snow, and brush hogging) & 2013 BX 2370 (mowing lawn)
I have a recently purchased BX 2370.
It's got the RCK60B23BX deck.
I've been doing a lot of service/repairs to the machine over the last month.
One of the projects was to get the upper surface of the deck shell cleaned up.
Surface rust/loose paint removal, wire brushing, sanding, repainting, new deck plastic wheels.
I did all the deck work with the deck up on a pair of steel sawhorses for making the job easier without having to crawl around on the ground like an animal.
While scraping/sanding/wire brushing/painting the deck, I noticed directly under the deck gearbox/pulley,
and it was dry as a bone. The gearbox was dry on the exterior, the belt pulley was dry, absolutely no visible indications of a gearbox lubricant leak. Oil leakage from a seal on a high rotational speed shaft, will always "fling" the lubricant and make a huge pig mess. There were no indications of ANY gearbox leakage.
That was what I expected to see.
I also checked the deck gearbox lube level when it was up on the sawhorses, and it was at the correct level.
When I purchased the machine, it had been run through the selling dealership service department, and
one of the items they did was to change the gear oil in the mower deck gearbox.
So when I finished the deck restoration, I reinstalled the deck on the tractor, and ran the tractor around on my driveway for 15 minutes or so with the mid PTO spinning the mower blades.
To my horror, when parked after running the machine, there was a small puddle of gear oil laying on the top surface of the deck shell directly under the mower deck gearbox belt pulley.
My initial reaction was that I was going to need to remove the deck from the tractor again, get it back up on the steel sawhorses, and then remove the deck gearbox and reseal/rebearing the deck gearbox.
Then I remembered that I had greased all the grease fittings on the deck.
One of those grease fittings greases the spindle bearing in that aluminum housing underneath the deck.
You can see the deck construction for the center spindle shaft with the aluminum housing mounted underneath the deck at this link location here:
I cleaned up the small puddle of gear oil several times and ran the tractor/deck again after each cleanup.
When I got to the third cleanup, it remained dry and no puddle, no reoccurring gear oil leakage.
The small quantity of gear oil was "pooled" and zero indication of "flinging" from a high speed rotating shaft.
So now I am 99.99999% sure that I have no mower deck gearbox leakage.
With careful analysis, my belief is that when the mower deck gearbox had the gear oil changed,
when it was drained, some gear oil ran down the hole in the deck where the gearbox output shaft penetrates the deck shell. There is an aluminum housing on the underside of the deck with an additional spindle bearing.
When I greased the fittings, that raised the level of the spilled gear oil down in that underneath aluminum housing, and then I saw what I initially thought was a deck gearbox gear oil leak.
The top fill plug on that deck gearbox is easy to see/touch when the deck is installed on the tractor.
I made a deck gearbox gear oil level checking "dipstick" out of a short piece of coat hanger.
I even filed small graduations on the side of the new "dipstick" so to have easy visual confirmation
that the deck gearbox had the correct level of lubricant in the gearbox.
It's still at the same level now as it was when it was up on the steel sawhorses when I was reconditioning the deck in my building.
So after that long winded scenario, here is my question.
How do you drain/refill the deck gearbox without having the drained gear lube run down that hole in the deck shell where the gearbox output shaft penetrates the deck shell?
I refuse to go through this grief every time the mower deck gearbox lubricant is changed.
It's got the RCK60B23BX deck.
I've been doing a lot of service/repairs to the machine over the last month.
One of the projects was to get the upper surface of the deck shell cleaned up.
Surface rust/loose paint removal, wire brushing, sanding, repainting, new deck plastic wheels.
I did all the deck work with the deck up on a pair of steel sawhorses for making the job easier without having to crawl around on the ground like an animal.
While scraping/sanding/wire brushing/painting the deck, I noticed directly under the deck gearbox/pulley,
and it was dry as a bone. The gearbox was dry on the exterior, the belt pulley was dry, absolutely no visible indications of a gearbox lubricant leak. Oil leakage from a seal on a high rotational speed shaft, will always "fling" the lubricant and make a huge pig mess. There were no indications of ANY gearbox leakage.
That was what I expected to see.
I also checked the deck gearbox lube level when it was up on the sawhorses, and it was at the correct level.
When I purchased the machine, it had been run through the selling dealership service department, and
one of the items they did was to change the gear oil in the mower deck gearbox.
So when I finished the deck restoration, I reinstalled the deck on the tractor, and ran the tractor around on my driveway for 15 minutes or so with the mid PTO spinning the mower blades.
To my horror, when parked after running the machine, there was a small puddle of gear oil laying on the top surface of the deck shell directly under the mower deck gearbox belt pulley.
My initial reaction was that I was going to need to remove the deck from the tractor again, get it back up on the steel sawhorses, and then remove the deck gearbox and reseal/rebearing the deck gearbox.
Then I remembered that I had greased all the grease fittings on the deck.
One of those grease fittings greases the spindle bearing in that aluminum housing underneath the deck.
You can see the deck construction for the center spindle shaft with the aluminum housing mounted underneath the deck at this link location here:
Kubota RCK60B23BX (60" SIDE DISCHARGE MOWER) Parts Diagrams
Kubota Parts Catalog Lookup. Buy Kubota Parts Online & Save!
www.messicks.com
I cleaned up the small puddle of gear oil several times and ran the tractor/deck again after each cleanup.
When I got to the third cleanup, it remained dry and no puddle, no reoccurring gear oil leakage.
The small quantity of gear oil was "pooled" and zero indication of "flinging" from a high speed rotating shaft.
So now I am 99.99999% sure that I have no mower deck gearbox leakage.
With careful analysis, my belief is that when the mower deck gearbox had the gear oil changed,
when it was drained, some gear oil ran down the hole in the deck where the gearbox output shaft penetrates the deck shell. There is an aluminum housing on the underside of the deck with an additional spindle bearing.
When I greased the fittings, that raised the level of the spilled gear oil down in that underneath aluminum housing, and then I saw what I initially thought was a deck gearbox gear oil leak.
The top fill plug on that deck gearbox is easy to see/touch when the deck is installed on the tractor.
I made a deck gearbox gear oil level checking "dipstick" out of a short piece of coat hanger.
I even filed small graduations on the side of the new "dipstick" so to have easy visual confirmation
that the deck gearbox had the correct level of lubricant in the gearbox.
It's still at the same level now as it was when it was up on the steel sawhorses when I was reconditioning the deck in my building.
So after that long winded scenario, here is my question.
How do you drain/refill the deck gearbox without having the drained gear lube run down that hole in the deck shell where the gearbox output shaft penetrates the deck shell?
I refuse to go through this grief every time the mower deck gearbox lubricant is changed.
