:welcome:
Was this belt on or belt off ?
You can not assess the condition of the spindle bearings by turning the blades with the belt attached as one side has a fixed tensioning pulley and the other has the moving tensioning pulley.
If your mower has a manual PTO then there is a blade brake as well.
What you should have done was check both blades for bending by aligning them in a strait line across the deck.
The blades should almost touch & be at the same height +/- 1/4".
Rotate one blade 1/2 turn and the alignment should be the same
Then do the other blade.
If one blade was 1/4" one side and the other side was 1/4" low, then the deck or spindle is bent / broken.
This should be done with the belt on so there is tension on the spindle housings which are deliberately frail on AYP products.
You check the rotation with the belt off.
You are looking for free, smooth and quiet rotation.
This is best done with the belt completely removed as even slack the belt can ride on the pulley.
If you mower has a manual PTO engagement it gets a bit harder as there are brakes which work on the spindle pulleys activated by the tensioning pulley arm so you have to both remove the belt and push the tensioning lever back to dissengage the brakes while simultaniously rotating the blades from under the deck
Rotate the blades by holding your pinkie stiff and pushing it sideways against the blade.
You get a better feel for roughness this way.
Thanks for the reply and info, it is sincerely appreciated !
The belt was on, I had simply got off the mower (parking brake on, engine off, blades lever disengaged) and was checking the blade spin by hand after untangling the hose off of them. Afterward, the mower started right up and both blades cut grass just as well as before.
I am feeling a little better now, the hose was an old cheap rubber hose and simply tangled up in the blades and stopped the engine, I would be surprised if the rubber hose would had been enough to do any serious damage like maybe hitting a piece of thick metal or a hard tree stump would.
Since you said there was both a fixed tensioning pulley and a moving tensioning pulley and it does have a manual PTO so there is a blade brake, then it would make sense that probably the right side that is tighter has the fixed tensioning pulley and that would explain why one side feels tighter.
Since the blades both spin (running the engine with blades engaged) without making any unusual noise and cut the grass just as before I guess I can likely assume all is well, as I would imagine if anything was bent or broken it would keep the mower from cutting just as it did before that happened, right ?
We have not had this riding mower long (first one) and I would have dreaded having to tell my wife I broke it already.
