I have a 2009 Lawn Boy self-propelled mower that kept stripping the drive wheel gears. The pinion was metal, and the wheel gears were plastic. I thought it might be a metal/plastic issue, but it turned out to be an alignment issue. The wheel mounting plate was toed-in slightly due to horizontal pressure being applied by the height adjustment lever. This caused wear in the bushings and bearings which over time caused the mounting plate to toe-in. If you disengage the height adjuster all the way down it relieved the pressure and pinion/gear meshed correctly. Of course, you cannot use it like this, so I determined that if I could move the plate in the front out slightly and keep it there it would work. This is what I did. Because the wear on the wheel gear teeth was only on the outer edge, I was able to use the original wheels longer. After applying this fix, I never had another problem. Hope this helps someone else.
Wheel grinding self-propelled mower
- Thread starter Noglu10
- Start date
I have the same problem with my DuraForce 2 stroke LawnBoy. I adjusted the parts and made a few bushings, with fairly good results. In the end, I use the thing for rough conditions, so I'd like to find some rear wheels that are beefy knobby tires.
Thanks for the reply. Not sure where you would find those tires. The only reason I replaced my original wheels was because the outside tread was worn slick. Mower is 15 years old and only have had 2 sets of wheels. Current wheel gears are perfect with no wear.
I had a similar problem with my toro. It came from the factory so misaligned and running gear so stiff that the rear wheels would sometimes slide when trying to pull it backwards. After taking the wheels off a couple times trying to figure out what was wrong I put some washers behind the height adjuster plates as alignment shims and all was well.
I had an old Scott’s mower that had an issue with the self propelled mechanism. There’s a pin that would freeze up in the bore and bind the drive gear. This would cause the wheels to grind. I had to clean them up every year to prevent the issue.
Just my $0.02
Just my $0.02
