Ok, I can see why you go about it that way, no doubt the G4/LM is a better design. Because we lived in a more isolated spot there wasn’t a good supply of used bits and we would get charged like a wounded bull for new stuff. Hence we tended to adapt what we had with whatever we had lying around to make it work.

I have a cobbled together but functional setup there now, might see if I can find some old images of how they were originally and make something that looks similar.

All my mowers have been used on biggish places over the years and what we did, starting back a long way, was to mostly buy mowers that had bearings in the wheels or, if not, modify the mower or wheels to take them. It helped that we had access to good sized discounts on reliable bearings back then. Probably a different proposition now. I’ll ask my mate at the engineering supplies when I next go in.