# Claydus's John Deere 220B



## claydus (Jun 2, 2019)

So I took the plunge and bought my first reel mower. Found this gem on Craigslist. A brought it home on 6/6/2019














































I couldn't resist and I had to cut some of the yard on the first day of ownership. I also wanted to get acquainted with mower levers, maneuverability, etc. The mower appeared to have not cut a yard in quite some time. I found there was good bit of dried grass and dirt on the reel and bedknife. I gave it a good wash before I mowed the yard. I also checked reel to bedknife with the standard paper test people use. It seemed to cut the paper ok but not great. I attempted to tighten the reel to bedknife adjustments but they were fairly tight already.

I said to myself just "GO FOR IT" (my inner @wardconnor ). I cut the yard with out any other adjustments. My yard was just about 1.5 inches before I cut it. I was told the mower was set to 3/4 inch cut height. I don't have a fancy tool or the DIY tool to accurately say just yet. I am running by the hardware store to make my own tool today. Anyways my yard isn't that level and there was a little bit of scalping here and there but overall the mower did great to my standards.

Back to the reel and bedknife. The reel is a 11 blade. No idea on the age of it. Going to attempt to measure diameter tonight. I was told that the bedknife was new-ish but I am unsure how to tell exactly. When engaging the reel for the first time there is a significant grinding noise at first. I believe this may have been some surface rust or old dirt on the bedknife. Looking back I should have back lapped but I will be doing that this weekend.

The drive roller engagement with the clutch is kind of rough. So I will be investigating in the next few weeks. Also, the grease on the reel and roller drive could use some refreshing. This leads me to believe the other bearings and grease are going to be suspect and will need addressing. The belts seem to be doing ok visually.

I will be browsing the QA John Deere thread A LOT from here on out!


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

Congrats on the purchase! Since you did a cut down to 3/4" you will need to raise the HOC or it will always look scalped. Once you get a HOC (self made) gauge then it may be better to go down to 1/2" for a lower scalp then raise back up to 3/4" HOC as a maintained height. I made my own HOC bar for less than $15 and have it fairly close to 3/4". The advantage of the digital gauges is the accuracy but when I compare $140 to my $15 I think its close enough  Get ready to cut your grass every other day to 2 days max (unless you do PGR)!


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## The_iHenry (Apr 23, 2019)

Congrats dude! looks like it was cared for.


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## Bmossin (May 31, 2018)

That looks real good!


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## claydus (Jun 2, 2019)

I had a rookie moment this weekend... I tested out the mower on Friday and Sunday to see how everything could cut. I backlapped on Saturday and I got the reel and bedknife cutting paper. I was told that the mower was set to 0.75 inch HOC. Anyways I after cutting the lawn, I noticed some scalping and thought it was a leveling issue on my yard.

On Sunday evening, I built a DIY measuring guage like the one above by hitting up HomeDepot. Low and behold the damn HOC was off by almost 0.25 inches from one end to the other.

This side was fully to the max HOC setting.








This side was slight toward the middle.


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

claydus said:


> I had a rookie moment this weekend... I tested out the mower on Friday and Sunday to see how everything could cut. I backlapped on Saturday and I got the reel and bedknife cutting paper. I was told that the mower was set to 0.75 inch HOC. Anyways I after cutting the lawn, I noticed some scalping and thought it was a leveling issue on my yard.
> 
> On Sunday evening, I built a DIY measuring guage like the one above by hitting up HomeDepot. Low and behold the damn HOC was off by almost 0.25 inches from one end to the other.
> 
> ...


post a pic of your homemade gauge...


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## claydus (Jun 2, 2019)

My $10 extremely too long DIY HOC gauge


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

claydus said:


> My $10 extremely too long DIY HOC gauge


Yes mine was as well so I just used a hand saw and cut it off. I use lock nuts and found that small washers work really well. I will take a pic...


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## ctrav (Aug 18, 2018)

Here are the pics...




I used a hand saw to cut the original full length bar down to 1' 9" and its perfect...


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