Tke head of what Blaze said.
Water is not good and you must be rigerious with the dry out or you willbe contributing to the retirement plan of your local parts dealer.
Toop of the deck, blow down with a leaf blower
Under the deck use an air duster with a 3' long duster gun.
Ok so let me refine the water is not your friend. If you put cold water on a hot spindle it will draw water into the spindle when the water cools it. Best thing to do if you must use water(I don't recommend it at all) is to let your spindles cool down to ambient temperature first. Then hook to garden hose. After you are done move mower to dry spot and run blades for 10 min to dry everything out really good.
#7
Ric
I agree with Bert and BlazNT. Those clean outs don't work half the time and the way there suppose to anyway. Most of the time when you go to use them there plugged with dirt and they never clean the deck, they always leave grass in all over the spindles and other places in the deck that stays wet and is a mess to deal with and you end up cleaning the deck anyway. kraky has the best idea, buy a lift and clean your deck regularly and stay away from water.
#8
mhavanti
Actually, always make sure the deck is cool, the engine is cool, especially since they are aluminum and aluminum will warp very easily if cold water comes into contact with running temperatures of the heads.
It won't happen every time, may never happen to you, but, it can and will happen to some.
During my early years of building with aluminum racing heads, we found that adjusting valves cold would change so dramatically when the engine came up to temperature we had more than one ocassion for valves to go into orbit and make contact with pistons. When the engines cooled down, the valves would once again have the clearances we set. Of course, once you have overcome the resistance of the valve spring energies, valves are going to go seeking another atmosphere. So, lots of things to consider in engine building as well as cleaning.
Let everything cool down before cleaning no matter which method you use.
I've cleaned the deck with the cleanout by starting up the mower and running it while shooting water and it cleaned it thoroughly. I also use spray on teflon after the deck dries. Works great.
So far my fastrack deck has been staying much cleaner than my raptor SD ever did.... but it has fresh factory paint under there where there was a little bit of corrosion starting on the sd so maybe it isn't a fair comparison....
I really likedp my SD but everything about the fast track is nicer all the way around from the deck... the extra traction ...the quieter running... the better ride and for some reason less turf scuffing. Hydro controls seem a lot more accurate and smooth too especially around dangerous things like air conditioners and sump pump hoses...lol! I thought it was crazy spending the extra $2,000 but it's some of the best money I ever spent.... seems like everybody that moves up to the fast-track feels the same way.
