Last night when I was cutting grass with the Del Morino flail I heard a sound that made me think that the belts needed tightening. This morning I adjusted belt tension and greased all the fittings. The flail has twelve zerks if you include both ends of the pto shaft, and I'm a little concerned at how much grease the flail drum bearings needed (bottom zerk in the photo below). I've greased all the fittings regularly, but with the belt guard off and the flail raised up I kept pumping grease in until I saw signs that the bearings were full. I'm talking a lot of pumps of the handle. It's as if the bearings came dry from the factory and my regular greasing schedule never put enough grease into them.
After adjusting belt tension and running the flail I can hear that sound still, maybe not as loud but it's there. Oh well, worst case is that I need to replace the drum bearings if they're shot. Time will tell.
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I bought a Radiator Genie from the local Kubota dealer yesterday and thought I'd blow out the MX's engine compartment to see how well it works. With the engine running I noticed that the A/C belt tensioner isn't rotating, which basically means that it isn't doing any tensioning.
The belt feels reasonably tight though, and definitely tighter than the other belt that runs the water pump and alternator. Regardless, I'll need to adjust both. I remember that I had to tighten the belt on the MX6000 open station fairly early on in the 103 hours that I put on it becuase it was "chirping" on start up, but I don't think I've had to do it on this MX yet which has 130 hours on it.
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