Uneven cut with Troy-bilt mower

I have a GTX 16 troy-bilt lawn tractor with 48" three blade mower. All three blades seem to be tipped. Here's what it looks like to me. As I look under the mower from the open grass shoot, the tip of the right side blade doesn't match up to the tip of the center blade. When I line them up, the left side of the right blade is about 1/2" higher than the right side of the center blade.
When I look at a freshly cut swath, I see three distinct rows, one for each blade. The right side of each row is cut lower than the left side of the row. This seems to be a result of the blades not being at the same height. At first I thought it was just low air in the tires on one side, nope. Then I found an leveling adjustment on the side of the mower to adjust the wheels, nope. Today I noticed the blades were not rotating in a "flat" pattern. I'm guess that's not right is it? I bought the mower used, but can't see any damage to the mower especially since all three blades have the same tip to them. Anyone ever had this problem or know of a fix. I'm stumped. Oh yes. Blades are all new and it did the same with the old blades.

 

Take the blade belt off and see if the blades straighten up. If so, the bearings in the mandrels are bad. You may be able to wiggle the blade up and down/back and forth to detect the bad bearings.

 

I'm betting that Cheese is right, but in the off chance, check your blades off the mower to see if they are bent.

 

Thanks for the quick replies. I'll check the bearings tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it's not the blades because all three are new and the old ones created the same cutting pattern as the new ones.

A friend of mine suggested that the mower deck may have been bad when it came from the factory. The fact that the cutting pattern is the same for all three blades. The left half of the cut is higher than the right half. He suggested each mount might need to be shimmed in order to flatten the rotation of the blade. Ever heard of that happening?

 

No, in all my years working on them, I've never seen that. I have seen them cut like you described because of bearings. The belt pulls them over to the side like that.

 

Well, took the mower off the tractor and the belt off the mower(actually just one pulley but it removed any belt tension) and the blade tips definitely do not match up. It's much easier to see with the mower off the tractor. The right and center blade tips are 3/4" off, the left and center are 1/2" different. There is only a very little play in the right blade. The other two are solid (no play) so I guess it's not the bearing.

Everything on the underside looks good. Everything looks straight. The only difference I can see is that the underside mount (not sure what you call it) for the right blade may have been replaced. Only say that because of the three mounts, this one has a grease fitting and the other two don't. Plus two of the four bolts holding the mount are longer than the other ones with nuts on the ends. I suppose if it was replaced they could have forgotten to add a spacer. Although that wouldn't cause the blades to be tipped.

Well, maybe someone will read this post and have an idea...I'm stumped.

 

Couple things I have found in the past:
Cracked or broken spindel/mandrel housing mounting ears. Bent deck where the housings mount. Incorrect housings installed. Blade brake arms broken causing one or more pulleys to not spin freely. Improper deck leveling or hanging........bent blades, bad bearings....

K sorry more than a couple....

 

my friend has been complaining of a similar problem and I told him to check the mandrels for any damage, his was mainly just the right outside blade cutting funny. This was some time ago and just the other day he said that while mowing his wife hit a rock and the right blade dropped and quit and everything stopped. His mandrel finished breaking probably the last mounting ear and then fell apart. Have not fixed for him yet but am ordering the part. The mandrel mounting could be cracked, or like cheese suggested the bearings are wore. My friend said he checked his to like I suggested and found nothing, but still was a problem there. I would look real good.
I had another mower where the owner put a blade on without the large washer, the blade was just not tight and it mowed unlevel on that side and made noise and almost wore out the star, Yours does not sound like that but thought I would share it.
good luck