OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions On Ride On Mowers Frames MTD RIDE ON

Hi all, this MTD side discharge ride on is leaving a thin strip of grass up the centre of the cut. Had a look under the deck and the blade tips appear to be very close together when aligned, so not too sure where to go from there. A mate has a JD and it does the same thing, and it is a fairly recent model. Any ideas to check would be great. Cheers.

Hi geobee,
sounds like the blades are a bit short for some reason

Hi Norm, I will double check, but by memory they are very close together, but I'm not sure on what the gap should actually be.

Hi geobee,
the blades are staggered on the angle so they overlap without hitting each other. Not easy to get at but if you run a stringline down through the middle and can rotate the blades slowly you should be able to see the overlap. If it is leaving a strip down the middle the blades are not overlapping.

If the blade tips are worn rounded this would cause this problem as it would the same as the blades were too short. Normally the blades have a straight line cutting edge but blade tips take a lot of abuse as they make first contact with anything including rocks.

This another reason the decks are shifted forward on the side opposite of the side discharging. Norm is right about the deck blades being offset and when the blade are correct they over lap in the direction of the cut.

Some manufactures are even timing the blades so even longer blades are used. But this requires a timing belt and blades timed 90 degrees off from each other.

Normal offset blades are usually with 1/8"-1/4" of each other when align tip to tip depending on the amount of offset. I have at least one set blades that actually hit each other which required a little grinding on the tips to stop it. Of course they were after market blades so probably was just a tad too long.

Possibly the wrong blades (slightly too short). As Norm says, there should be an overlap

What is the model number or model name and approx year? Might be able to figure out then

Thanks to all, yes, maybe the wrong blades fitted. It has been sold along with the property, so I wont get the opportunity to to correct the problem. It is an early model, not sure of the year, but it has had a pretty hard life I would say. In other words, just been kept going by doing the minimum and with whatever was on hand. Cheers. Geoff