golfergordy
Member
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2014
- Threads
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- 49
There are 4 items which I will discuss in this thread: 1) painting, 2) front deck bumper, 3) handlebar support kit, & 4) Plastic wheel reinforcement.
The HR215K1 Masters is the mower which the 4 items in this thread were performed on, however, they also apply to the entire HR214/215 series, except for deck color.
1st item – painting: The mower had some scratching and scraping marks which scraped off some of the paint from the left side of the deck. I discovered that an almost perfect color match to Honda's Vintage Grey Metallic (NH190M), which is the orig. deck color of the HR215K1 Masters and HRC215K1 Commercial, is Dupli-Color Perfect Match Charcoal Gray Met (AA9, PA9), which replaces their color #DSCC331. 2 attached pics show the before and after of one side of the deck which I painted. The red arrows on the after picture show where the new paint was blended into the orig. paint. Using a rubbing compound on the new paint, especially where it's blended with the orig. paint makes it hard to tell that any paint work was done. I used 120 grit sandpaper on the orig. paint, then Rustoleum Primer called 2in1 Filler & Sandable, then 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and finally the rattle can finish color paint mentioned above. Naturally, the area painted must be masked off to avoid paint from going where it's not wanted. It's best to mask off at existing joints in the paintwork or to corners where the metal changes directions.
2nd item – front deck bumper: I bought a brand new HR214 SX in 1985 and still have it. It currently has 2 problems – 1) engine smokes on startup, and 2) the front of the deck looks like grandma's teeth. I used to run the mower, gently but head on, into a few trees on my lot while trying to cut the grass right up to the trees. I found out after the fact that large chunks (maybe up to approx. 1” x 1”) of the front lower edge of the deck broke off due to this impact. This didn't affect the HR214's performance, but the appearance was less than pleasing. Almost 20-yrs ago I picked up a damaged piece of approx. 60” dia. rubber concrete sewer gasket discarded by a sewer contractor. After staring at it in my garage for 15+ years I realized that it might cure the chipped off lower front deck edge that was present on the HR215 Masters I had recently picked up. I cut off a piece of the gasket and screwed it onto the front of the aluminum deck, and it covered up the existing damage, as well as provided protection against further front deck damage. Unfortunately, a piece of rubber like I used isn't available at your local HD, but maybe someone out there is inventive enough to find some other material to install which would protect the front lower edge of fragile aluminum mower decks. See the pics of the front lower edge deck damage and the rubber bumper installed.
3rd item – handlebar support kit: I have used several HR series mowers (all are 20-35 yrs old), and all (but the HRC215 since it already has additional handlebar supports) have had wear at the handlebar holders & the lower end of the handlebars where they connect to the holders. The amount of wear wasn't bad enough yet in any of them to affect the handlebar connection to the deck, but eventually it could be a problem. I found a new handlebar support kit on ebay at a price lower than at boats.net (the lowest price online OPE parts vendor I have found), and I thought it would be a cool upgrade at a good price, so I bought and installed it. If you are going to install a handlebar support kit, I have a word of caution for you – The instructions give exact measurements for where to drill the attachment holes in the deck, but it's not easy to exactly locate the drilling points, so once you think you have the drilling points located, make sure that the washer from the kit (on one side of the deck) and the spacer (on the other side) will have enough room to rest on a flat surface of the deck so as not to conflict with anything. I'm sure that there's approx. + or – 1/2” (or more) of tolerance to play with for the location of the drill holes, so adjust the drill hole location so that no conflict will exist. Also, I painted the support pieces flat black to match the handlebar. See the pics.
4th item – wheel reinforcement: I have previously started a thread on this subject but have expanded the repair work since then, so I'll repeat it here. On all the HR series mowers I've seen, they all have had this issue, which is hairline cracking in the plastic rear wheel hubs. I've never seen this problem in the front wheels – probably because the front wheel hubs contain ball bearings. The interior of the rear wheel hubs ride directly on the axle shaft coming from the transmission and hairline cracks develop right on the interior surface that rides on the axle. These cracks can propagate thru the hub until they are visible from the outside of the hub. I have previously written about reinforcing the outside of the hub by epoxying on a thin (maybe 1/4") sawed off piece of 3/4” schedule 40 pvc pipe coupling which fits nicely onto the plastic wheel hub on the outside of the wheel. I have recently noticed that these cracks also propagate to the inside face of the wheel facing the mower deck, so I did the same repair on the inside face of the wheel hub by glueing on a thin piece of 2” schedule 40 pvc pipe coupling, but the inner diameter of this coupling had to be ground down approx. 1/64” to snugly fit onto the wheel hub. I used my high speed rotary tool (Dremel or equal) to do this grinding. Also, be careful not to use a piece of the 2” pipe coupling wider than about 3/16” so it won't rub against the wheel adjuster arm. If it does rub, just grind off the outer top edge of the pvc until there's a small clearance to the arm. Also when I recently installed this reinforcement I used pvc cement to glue it on instead of the epoxy gluing method I used about 2-yrs ago which still appeared to be holding up just fine, but time will tell if either the epoxy or the pvc cement method eventually fails or not. Naturally, thorough cleaning and sanding should be done prior to applying any type of adhesive. See the pics showing the pvc wheel reinforcement. Hopefully this reinforcement will extend the life of the wheels.
I'd like anyone who knows of any more similar uncommon maintenance upgrades to add to this thread, to feel free to add them here.
The HR215K1 Masters is the mower which the 4 items in this thread were performed on, however, they also apply to the entire HR214/215 series, except for deck color.
1st item – painting: The mower had some scratching and scraping marks which scraped off some of the paint from the left side of the deck. I discovered that an almost perfect color match to Honda's Vintage Grey Metallic (NH190M), which is the orig. deck color of the HR215K1 Masters and HRC215K1 Commercial, is Dupli-Color Perfect Match Charcoal Gray Met (AA9, PA9), which replaces their color #DSCC331. 2 attached pics show the before and after of one side of the deck which I painted. The red arrows on the after picture show where the new paint was blended into the orig. paint. Using a rubbing compound on the new paint, especially where it's blended with the orig. paint makes it hard to tell that any paint work was done. I used 120 grit sandpaper on the orig. paint, then Rustoleum Primer called 2in1 Filler & Sandable, then 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and finally the rattle can finish color paint mentioned above. Naturally, the area painted must be masked off to avoid paint from going where it's not wanted. It's best to mask off at existing joints in the paintwork or to corners where the metal changes directions.
2nd item – front deck bumper: I bought a brand new HR214 SX in 1985 and still have it. It currently has 2 problems – 1) engine smokes on startup, and 2) the front of the deck looks like grandma's teeth. I used to run the mower, gently but head on, into a few trees on my lot while trying to cut the grass right up to the trees. I found out after the fact that large chunks (maybe up to approx. 1” x 1”) of the front lower edge of the deck broke off due to this impact. This didn't affect the HR214's performance, but the appearance was less than pleasing. Almost 20-yrs ago I picked up a damaged piece of approx. 60” dia. rubber concrete sewer gasket discarded by a sewer contractor. After staring at it in my garage for 15+ years I realized that it might cure the chipped off lower front deck edge that was present on the HR215 Masters I had recently picked up. I cut off a piece of the gasket and screwed it onto the front of the aluminum deck, and it covered up the existing damage, as well as provided protection against further front deck damage. Unfortunately, a piece of rubber like I used isn't available at your local HD, but maybe someone out there is inventive enough to find some other material to install which would protect the front lower edge of fragile aluminum mower decks. See the pics of the front lower edge deck damage and the rubber bumper installed.
3rd item – handlebar support kit: I have used several HR series mowers (all are 20-35 yrs old), and all (but the HRC215 since it already has additional handlebar supports) have had wear at the handlebar holders & the lower end of the handlebars where they connect to the holders. The amount of wear wasn't bad enough yet in any of them to affect the handlebar connection to the deck, but eventually it could be a problem. I found a new handlebar support kit on ebay at a price lower than at boats.net (the lowest price online OPE parts vendor I have found), and I thought it would be a cool upgrade at a good price, so I bought and installed it. If you are going to install a handlebar support kit, I have a word of caution for you – The instructions give exact measurements for where to drill the attachment holes in the deck, but it's not easy to exactly locate the drilling points, so once you think you have the drilling points located, make sure that the washer from the kit (on one side of the deck) and the spacer (on the other side) will have enough room to rest on a flat surface of the deck so as not to conflict with anything. I'm sure that there's approx. + or – 1/2” (or more) of tolerance to play with for the location of the drill holes, so adjust the drill hole location so that no conflict will exist. Also, I painted the support pieces flat black to match the handlebar. See the pics.
4th item – wheel reinforcement: I have previously started a thread on this subject but have expanded the repair work since then, so I'll repeat it here. On all the HR series mowers I've seen, they all have had this issue, which is hairline cracking in the plastic rear wheel hubs. I've never seen this problem in the front wheels – probably because the front wheel hubs contain ball bearings. The interior of the rear wheel hubs ride directly on the axle shaft coming from the transmission and hairline cracks develop right on the interior surface that rides on the axle. These cracks can propagate thru the hub until they are visible from the outside of the hub. I have previously written about reinforcing the outside of the hub by epoxying on a thin (maybe 1/4") sawed off piece of 3/4” schedule 40 pvc pipe coupling which fits nicely onto the plastic wheel hub on the outside of the wheel. I have recently noticed that these cracks also propagate to the inside face of the wheel facing the mower deck, so I did the same repair on the inside face of the wheel hub by glueing on a thin piece of 2” schedule 40 pvc pipe coupling, but the inner diameter of this coupling had to be ground down approx. 1/64” to snugly fit onto the wheel hub. I used my high speed rotary tool (Dremel or equal) to do this grinding. Also, be careful not to use a piece of the 2” pipe coupling wider than about 3/16” so it won't rub against the wheel adjuster arm. If it does rub, just grind off the outer top edge of the pvc until there's a small clearance to the arm. Also when I recently installed this reinforcement I used pvc cement to glue it on instead of the epoxy gluing method I used about 2-yrs ago which still appeared to be holding up just fine, but time will tell if either the epoxy or the pvc cement method eventually fails or not. Naturally, thorough cleaning and sanding should be done prior to applying any type of adhesive. See the pics showing the pvc wheel reinforcement. Hopefully this reinforcement will extend the life of the wheels.
I'd like anyone who knows of any more similar uncommon maintenance upgrades to add to this thread, to feel free to add them here.
