917.273353 deck rebuild?

It's getting that time of year here in the south. The weeds are popping up and things are growing slowly. Last year I grenaded the 11hp briggs on my beloved snapper sr930. I found this craftsman on craigs list for $200. Needed a muffler which was easy enough. Didn't put the oil dipstick back in right a couple of months later and popped a valve when it blew oil out of the crank case. Fixed that and all's been good. Toward the end of last years cutting season I noticed an odd cutting pattern. It seems to leave a two to four inch strip of grass that isn't cut in the middle after new belts and blades and the blades are the right part number for the mower. Deck spindles with new bearings are cheap enough around $50 on ebay or amazon and honestly are the only thing that hasn't been replaced on the deck. Oh well order placed I hope this improves the cut pattern when it's put back together and the deck leveled.

The blades are wrong or on upside down.
That is an AYP ( Husqvarna ) mower with a very shallow deck which is sensitive to blades.
When fitted the blades should miss each other by about 1/16".

Original pattern aftermarket blade work quite well but third party blades like Gaitors dont because the deck is way too shallow.
If you have the 3 point mounts on the spindle housings take extra care to keep the vent holes around the housings clear .
And if you are fitting cheap Chinese bearings expect to replace the entire housing if not the deck within a season or two.

The most faked item , by volume is bearings and most of what is offered on the web is Chinese or Indian trash.
If you must buy bearings on line, check that the "shop" is real, had a phone number and a pick up address then google the address and check what is there.
Most of the internet bearing companies do not exist they are just web pages created with stock images & photoshop.
bearings come in from China to a 3rd party warehouse who gets dispatch orders from the web.

Blades are the right ones factory part from the local shop and on right because it cuts perfectly except for that little strip and the top of the blades were marked up. They are close and do look tike they would touch. I'll keep an eye on the vent holes this season didn't think about that last year, might be the problem. I'm going to pull a spindle and go to my bearing supply house to see about replacements seeing as how the spindle housings are undamaged. If not I do have a couple of parts suppliers that carry a wide variety of factory parts all within an hours drive or less from me. I'm going out now to look at the vent holes in the deck and look over the rest I'll be doing my first cut of the year tomorrow. Still will need the bearings though the right one is getting noisy. Thanks for the help I didn't take the shallow deck into consideration. I found a cheap rebuilt briggs at a shop on the way to the bearing supply if that works out I'm going back to my SR930. I lose a foot of cutting path but that rear engine beast cuts great at any speed and will run circles around the big craftsman.

Whenever I do anything with the deck, blades or whatever, last thing I check is carefully rotating the blades & at the center check to see that the blade tips line up on height & small gap, then spin both 180* & check again.

when I got this thing it was kind of rough. Rotted off muffler and tired deck belt. It cut well when I replaced the muffler and I always cleaned it well after use. I bent a blade one day and got replacements at the mower shop. They have some n.o.s parts at times and had the factory blades cheap enough. Just thought of another problem that might be contributing to the odd cut besides the deck vent which one was partially clogged. I cut with the deck at it's highest point. Texas summers are hard on lawns so I try to keep it long during the dog days. Shallow deck+ clogged deck+ max cut height might be my whole problem.

I always measure replacement blades. You never know. On my Toro 42" two blade, each blade measures 21.5" x 2 = 43" (Go figure).

I'm in the process of rebuilding a 38" deck and noticed that there is about 1/2" of play in each mounting hole where spindles go in. So, if you mount the spindles to the extreme "far apart" that's an inch. Plus (+/-) 1/4" for the clearance between blades as per design. Now, what type of a blade did you put on? No-lift, standard lift, high lift, mulch? Hi-lift blades "pull" grass in under the cut eliminating uncut "dead zone"...another thing I wanna say is that with pressed decks I'm a firm believer in deck/spindle reinforcement ring. Its a 1/4" steel ring with mounting holes that goes under the deck, mounting bolts go thru the ring, deck and into the spindle mounting bracket reinforcing and stiffen it all up. Goes for about $10. And the reason I'm saying this is because you stated that the uncut - dead zone - varies from 2" to 4" making me think that there is some deck flexing going on as well.

As far as replacement bearings I only buy NTN or Timken / Fafnir brand. Unfortunately...they're both made in Taiwan!!!

The blades I got were nos craftsman in the package with the correct p.n. Same length as the ones I took off but did notice differences in tractor supply blades by brand. I used standard blades. My deck's been reinforced by the previous owner the variation comes from the mix I cut between grass and weed that's a lot tougher to cut. As stated earlier in the post the deck is shallow compared to my old Snapper by at least 2 inches. The vent holes in the deck were indeed plugged more on the right though. I cleaned it out good and am heading out to pick up some new bearings. My supply house has Timken been using them for years so I'm good with that.

Each blade has to overlap the other to get a complete cut.
To do this either then blades have to be timed so they don not hit each other or the spindles must be off set front back or they will hit each other.

You notice this most when you turn,
Turn one direction will leave a mowhawk in the grass while turning the other way will not leave a mowhawk but will make a narrower cut.

When cutting at full height you get the least amount of airflow under the deck to make the grass blades stand up so they can get cut off.
To compensate for this you have to drive slower.
This effect will be different for different types of grass.
Also if the bade speed is too slow this will also happen.
The mower must be running flat out when cutting.
A lot of people run at 1/2 speed because they wan to move slowly so the airflow under the deck is further compromised and the blades are spinning so slow the grass just bends over.