lawn mower rear axle


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Old 05-29-18, 05:15 AM
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lawn mower rear axle

I got the engine running on my 50+ year old Motomower last week, and still need to check the points, clean the carburetor more thoroughly, replace the wiring, etc., but it sounded promising enough to proceed. So over the weekend we Gunked what needed it, washed it good, and moved it back inside where I started replacing the rear axle seals, which I knew one anyway was leaking. That's when I found that I had something close to 1/8" movement up and down at the end of the axle shaft, so figured I'd just replace the bearings while I was at it. Turns out that it has bronze bushings rather than bearings. So here's the question; how much "slop" can I have there and still expect a seal to seal? This thing is going to the wife, to pull around her garden cart and like that, maybe pull the roller once in a great while, etc., so I'm not going to pull the axles out and turn them down. I intend to clean up the burrs with emery cloth and call them good. It's a little more work than I planned on, but I do have a press so suppose I could hunt around for the right size bushings, but they might not be that easy to find, so figured I'd see what similar experiences there might be here. Thank you.
 
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Old 05-29-18, 05:04 PM
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A lot of it depends on how much of a lip there is on the seal and what kind of lubricant is in the unit. If it's close to the usual size seal lip, then you won't want a lot of play. You might be pushing it at 1/16" or so of play if it's gear oil. You might luck up if it's grease and not leak as much.
 
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Old 05-29-18, 06:29 PM
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Thank you, Cheese, and you hit square on two of the things that kept popping back into my head today; not much of a lip on the seals, and probably more critical it does use gear lube, which is going to leak at the first opportunity. The other factor is that I wouldn't have hesitated replacing tapered bearings so why was I holding off on the bushings. So after fighting traffic on the way back from the jobsite, I had dinner, logged in long enough to see that I could find replacements, then popped the first set out. It went smooth as silk, or close to it, so will order new ones, put this side together and do the other side. Thank you again.
 
 

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