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I picked up an older HR215HX Masters the other day and have been getting it ready for spring with some good info from this site. It has the mulching kit, even the mulching plug. The cutting blade was shot but the upper blade is salvageable. My question is: What is a good blade choice for mulching? Is the OEM dual mulch blade the best setup or should I go with a single high lift or Gator Blade? Do these movers even mulch well or am I better off using the side discharge? Do not want to bag it.

https://planopower.com/store/honda/honda_hr215_bbc_assembly.php

my son uses HR215SXA Masters series that i purchased new in 1990, mulches & bags well

Good thing I checked the diagram. I am missing a blade holder and I had the spacer in the wrong spot.

I have a Master's series with the dual blade setup. Mulches and bags very well with it. Seems like a bit much for the engine when engaging the blade though - rpms drop way down. I rarely use it though as I can use larger mowers most of the time.

I did notice it struggled a little to get the blades up to speed. Where does the spacer go? Does it go in between the upper and lower blade? Since it was missing the blade holder all together I'm doubting the way it was put together when I got it. The flat "spacer" was between the bolts and lower blade when I got it. The upper and lower blades were sandwiched together with nothing between them.

Unfortunately the mower is in the mildly wildly inaccessible portion of my shed right mow and won't see daylight for about 6 weeks so I can't check it. I use the machine so seldom that I've only sharpened the blade once since I bought it a dozen years ago, so in don't remember anything other than that the upper and lower blades are stacked.

There is a YouTube video showing a guy disassembling the BBC on a Honda HR215 Masters mower (for slow to engage blades). He replaced the clutch (the brake pad portion was worn away) and sanded the glaze off the flywheel part of the BBC system. It did seem to engage better after putting it back together.

Mine had oil leakage from the engine on the BBC system that caused slippage, but I replaced the oil seal to fix that.

https://youtu.be/Tjx79y_JsJI
Regards

Jeff

I think in at least my case that it's just a lot for the engine to get spinning with the double blade setup. Engages blades fine just pulls engine down hard. Will stall it if I don't warm it up enough or if I have it in uncut grass. Always been that way from day 1. What's it like 5hp?

Edit: Here you go. Dug out my original paperwork. Mine is an HR215K1HMA. Here's the installation instructions and diagram for the mulching blade. Note that the blade holder is not used for the double blade setup. The spacer goes in its place. And there is nothing between the 2 blades. Sounds like it was installed properly on your machine except the spacer was in the wrong place?

Hmmm, I know valve adjustment on 4 cycle model airplane glow engine makes a HUGE difference in power.

It kind of makes sense, as the valve train wears, the valves are not opening as much as they should.

Regards

Jeff

Darryl G said:

I think in at least my case that it's just a lot for the engine to get spinning with the double blade setup. Engages blades fine just pulls engine down hard. Will stall it if I don't warm it up enough or if I have it in uncut grass. Always been that way from day 1. What's it like 5hp?

Edit: Here you go. Dug out my original paperwork. Mine is an HR215K1HMA. Here's the installation instructions and diagram for the mulching blade. Note that the blade holder is not used for the double blade setup. The spacer goes in its place. And there is nothing between the 2 blades. Sounds like it was installed properly on your machine except the spacer was in the wrong place?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the diagram! Saved me $40 ordering a replacment that I didnt need

Welcome. I was amazed to see that those spring washers under the bolts are $5 each at Jack's Small Engines. What?!?!

Used the 215 for the first time today. Not impressed....It didn't have the power to run thru one pass without dying. I kept having to release the blade clutch to keep it from dying when the grass got the slightest bit thick. Its a yard that is not well maintained, mostly weeds but they were not that thick. After about 3 passes I went for my cheapo Troy Built XP that blew right threw it. Maybe the two blade setup is too much for that motor? Going to try a single blade and maybe a side discharge shute to keep it from loading up. If that doesnt work I have no use for it.

Baughman85 said:

Thanks for the diagram! Saved me $40 ordering a replacment that I didnt need

Click to expand...

I'm sure you know those "sping-washers" are also called Belleville & compression washers, just FYI

Baughman85 said:

Used the 215 for the first time today. Not impressed....It didn't have the power to run thru one pass without dying. I kept having to release the blade clutch to keep it from dying when the grass got the slightest bit thick. Its a yard that is not well maintained, mostly weeds but they were not that thick. After about 3 passes I went for my cheapo Troy Built XP that blew right threw it. Maybe the two blade setup is too much for that motor? Going to try a single blade and maybe a side discharge shute to keep it from loading up. If that doesnt work I have no use for it.

Click to expand...

Power is definitely on the marginal end of things with the double blades and mulching, and perhaps the engine is a bit "tired" bringing it to the critical point of not being able to do the job.

I agree with your plan to just go with a single blade and see how that goes. You'll need to get the blade holder bracket and shorter blade bolts, as the mulch kit deletes the blade holder and uses longer bolts.

Darryl G said:

Welcome. I was amazed to see that those spring washers under the bolts are $5 each at Jack's Small Engines. What?!?!

Click to expand...

Available at (Fastenal) MUCH cheaper !

https://www.fastenal.com/products/b...|~ ~|categoryl3:"600090 Belleville Washers"|~

Baughman85 said:

Used the 215 for the first time today. Not impressed....It didn't have the power to run thru one pass without dying. I kept having to release the blade clutch to keep it from dying when the grass got the slightest bit thick. Its a yard that is not well maintained, mostly weeds but they were not that thick. After about 3 passes I went for my cheapo Troy Built XP that blew right threw it. Maybe the two blade setup is too much for that motor? Going to try a single blade and maybe a side discharge shute to keep it from loading up. If that doesnt work I have no use for it.

Click to expand...

There is a limit to what a mulching mower can do.
The mulchers down here generally have a bigger motor because all of that extra wind movement & grass chopping requires a lot more power.
The mulching version comes with the 190 the strait thrower/bagger uses the 160.

Then there is what you are cutting.
You can not mulch 6" tall grass down to 2", some thing that my office working customers can not understand.
Ideally mulching cuts should be no more that 1/4 of the height of the grass.

Finally, mulching takes time so you have to mow slower, another thing the office workers and particularly the managers can not understand.

Over there the lawers have your balls in a vice because blade brakes/clutches are manditory and all that extra trash gobbles up a lot of power.

Took the mulching blade off and it runs much better and cuts great. I mow my yard before it gets too tall but the other two other people I mow for let theirs get a little tall before they have me cut it. I guess I will keep the Troy Built around for those yards.

My son has an HR215K1 SX masters series, and I have an HR215 SX, and last year I installed the mulching blade setup onto both of them. Only the Masters series had the mulching plug installed and I found that the HR215 w/o the mulching plug didn't work as well if I tried to mulch w/o the plug, so I obtained a mulching plug for that one too. If you have the mulching blade setup installed but don't want to mulch, there's no problem because you just attach the grass bag. The mulching blade setup cuts the grass into smaller pieces which fit into the bag more efficiently, so you can cut more grass before emptying the bag.

With 2 different HR215 mowers, I have not noticed a drop-off of power with the mulching blades installed whether mulching or bagging. There might actually be a very small power loss, but I haven't noticed any loss to worry about. If you're experiencing noticeable power loss, I suggest you check every aspect of the mower which could lower power output if not up to specs. For example, I picked up a used HS520 SB a few years ago, and it seemed to run fine, but I noticed that it didn't have the correct spark plug installed, so I replaced the spark plug with the correct one, and the rpm jumped up a few hundred rpms.