I have a Tiger Cat 2 61 in that has gone through way to many spindle assembly's. It has 450 hrs and has already gone through the factory set and now a aftermarket set. I use good red grease and still burn through them. I mow all summer and mulch lots of leaves in the winter and am tired of replacing spindles. Any advice would be appreciated.
My guess is that you are pumping grease into a spindle housing with sealed bearings. It is a cruel engineering joke for many of the parts manufacturers to install fittings that do no good to grease.
Take one of your old spindles apart and wipe all the excess grease off and then look at the top and bottom bearings. They will likely have seals on both the inside and outside portion of the bearings. That means they are "sealed" bearings.
What many folks do (that now know this) is remove the inner seal (only) so when the spindle is greased at the fitting on the side of the housing, the grease can actually make it to the bearing rollers where it is needed.
These are tapered roller bearings with a press in race and a seal on each end of the housing. I have pressed one apart and started to rebuild it but the assembly’s were almost as cheap as the bearing kits.
These are tapered roller bearings with a press in race and a seal on each end of the housing. I have pressed one apart and started to rebuild it but the assembly’s were almost as cheap as the bearing kits.
Does the center spindle shaft have a spacer pipe to make sure the tapered roller bearings are not bottomed out in the races and over tightened, it should. If tapered roller bearings are too tight of a fit, the grease will not get in to lube them properly.
In my humble opinion it is worth the trouble to have all the parts laid out and then pack grease in (and rotate while packing) all taper bearings by hand before install to make sure enough grease get to the inner race of the bearing itself. That step makes a huge difference in the life of the bearings.
Pre-assembled units do not come prepacked by hand and simply pumping grease in will take hours of run time to heat up before the grease moves enough to get where it is needed most. This excess heat creates initial damage and shortens the life of the bearings and races.
Does the center spindle shaft have a spacer pipe to make sure the tapered roller bearings are not bottomed out in the races and over tightened, it should. If tapered roller bearings are too tight of a fit, the grease will not get in to lube them properly.
In my humble opinion it is worth the trouble to have all the parts laid out and then pack grease in (and rotate while packing) all taper bearings by hand before install to make sure enough grease get to the inner race of the bearing itself. That step makes a huge difference in the life of the bearings.
Pre-assembled units do not come prepacked by hand and simply pumping grease into them will take hours of run time to heat up before the grease moves enough to get where it is needed most. This excess heat creates initial damage and shortens the life of the bearings and races.
