New to site. . .Scag spindle assembly

I have an old scag walk behind SWZ deck model and have taken it to be blasted and now it is re-painted and welded up. I ended up just getting new spindle assemblies, but now I am having a hard time getting the pulley's back on the assembly. . . is there some trick I am missing? Does anyone know if there is a walkthough posted on how to do this?

Any help would be great thanks!

The spindles without the pulleys are installed from underneath the deck. With the spindles installed and bolts and nuts tight, the pulleys are installed. There is a hub in the center of the pulleys, remove this from the pulley, two bolts, set the pulley over the spindle. The hub has both a taper and a key slot, line up the key and using the blade bolt and nut you can pull the hub down into place. Then line up the pulley bolt holes to the hub holes and reinstall the pulley bolts. You can utilize the blade bolt spacers on the blade bolt both above and below the spindle to get enough bolt thread to be able to tighten the hub into place on the spindle. Make sure that you place the blade and spacers into their correct position on the blade bolt when you reinstall the blades.
Mad Mackie in CT

Thanks so much for the info! Any idea what the measurement is that the pulleys should be above the spindle/ deck?

The top of the pulley hub will be flush with or close to the spindle top when assembled correctly.

wont that cause rubbing and a lot of friction?

Friction and dragging on what?

on the outer most lip of the assembly. When the pulley comes down it slides all the way down the spindle and rests on top of the assembly.

The top of the spindle shaft has a taper and a key slot. The hub of the pulley has the matching taper and keyslot and will only fit onto the spindle just so far and tighten onto the taper. The two pulley bolts when installed will bring the pulley tight to the underside of the pulley hub. When the blade bolt with blade and spacers is installed into the spindle and the nut torqued to spec the pulley hub will go no farther onto the spindle than flush.

I'm wrong about the position of the taper, it is on the outside of the pulley hub where the inside diameter of the pulley fits onto the hub. When the two bolts are installed the pulley is drawn up this taper. The pulley hub with key slides onto the spindle shaft and rests against the upper part of the spindle shoulder. When the blade bolt, spacers, and nut are correctly installed and torqued to 75 FT LBS then the assembly stays together and clear of the deck top.
You can see a partial radial cut in the pulley and this lets the pulley be drawn up the taper of the pulley hub when the two bolts are tightened.
My Tiger Cub is here in my garage waiting for Mad Mackie to replace or repair the left hand brake band so I went out and looked at the spindle pulleys and also looked in the parts manual again!!!
Scag has been using basically the same design spindle for years, although changing the spindle housing material back and forth from aluminum and cast iron.
Mad Mackie in CT

Gotcha...I am going to give it a go again in the morning and I will post a picture of the results. Thanks so much for the help!!!!:thumbsup:

Got everything hooked up and spinning great. Sorry but camera is missing so no pictures. . . now the bad news the engine is being finicky. . . I'll make another post about that.