# Jacobsen vs. Water Meter Cover



## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

🤬



Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that....



Busted the reel to idler cog belt.



I didn't even actually hit the cast iron meter cover! As you can see, it's sunk into the ground pretty far but somehow I managed to bounce the corner of the bedknife off the cover, bending it up into the reel.



Busted weld on the reel.

So, looks like I may be doing a Jacobsen rebuild thread soon........ :|


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

Ouch. MQ busted his stuff up this weekend too. I better leave mine in the garage until this storm passes.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Wow, it busted the weld too. That's some serious momentum.


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

Dang, so many people breaking reels early on this season with curbs and driveways and now a water meter box. I'm wondering, did you have your catcher on, or not? I'd like to think that having my catcher on keeps me from hitting some objects in my lawn.


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## J_nick (Jan 28, 2017)

Ware said:


> Ouch. MQ busted his stuff up this weekend too. I better leave mine in the garage until this storm passes.


@fp_911 dinged his on some concrete too. It's been a bad year for reels so far.


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

I depend on 1 GM 1000 to do all of my mowing. Hard objects of any kind in or near the lawn are avoided, mowed around. Sure, it is a PITA do to more trimming, but replacement blades for the Landscape Blade are cheap and my Maruyama distributor normally has them around. A Toro reel and bedknife is a lot more, there is no guarantee that the Toro distributor has them around, R&R products does, but if I order on Monday, it might be Wednesday or Thursday before it gets here. In other words, I do not run my mower over anything other than irrigation pop ups in the lawn and if those are not set correctly, I avoid those as well.


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

MasterMech said:


> 🤬
> 
> 
> 
> Pretty sure it's not supposed to do that....


That's exactly how mine looked too!!


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

I just totaled up the replacement parts. 

Let's just say I'm close enough to R&R's free shipping threshold to make me consider picking up a tool of some sort. They want $70 to ship my order as is. :shock:


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## Greendoc (Mar 24, 2018)

Their $500 order ships free is only for the middle 48 states. Let's just say I do not make a habit of bending or breaking reels and bedknives.







Bedknife and reel to Hawaii is over $100. At that point, it is worth it for me to fill up the rest of the box with wetting agent pellets or whatever else. I do use wetting agent pellets on lawns that are struggling with windy and dry conditions.


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

MasterMech said:


> I just totaled up the replacement parts.
> 
> Let's just say I'm close enough to R&R's free shipping threshold to make me consider picking up a tool of some sort. They want $70 to ship my order as is. :shock:


I'm going tomorrow to order my parts for the Baroness and I'm sure it will be well over what you spent  That's the one down side to owning a Baroness is that you can't get parts from R&R 

Depending on how far you are from Free Shipping I would go ahead and order some other things like a Leveling Rake as you would essentially be getting $70 off since shipping would be free :thumbup:


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Mightyquinn said:


> MasterMech said:
> 
> 
> > I just totaled up the replacement parts.
> ...


Yup. Kinda want a nice HoC gauge, but I don't really like R&R's version compared to an AccuGauge.

I need a drag mat for some upcoming aeration work but those are overpriced too, hmmm, decisions, decisions!


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Parts are in-house..... now to find the time!


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

It's 10:30pm, you have the next 12hrs to pull an all nighter and be mowing in the am.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

g-man said:


> It's 10:30pm, you have the next 12hrs to pull an all nighter and be mowing in the am.


It's the kind of stunt I'd pull for sure! Just did an all-nighter last weekend for the day job. I'll likely be mowing this weekend, but I think it's going to be Sunday.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

So I'm diving in here. I can work on it here and there this weekend so this is going to come in bits and pieces. Feel free to ask for more detail as we go, I'll try to explain or add pics.


Side cover is off, make sure you back out the Allen head set screws for the drive engagement levers.

Here's the roller drive set.



This as a side note, the roller brackets are a classic weakness on these machines, when cutting at the upper end of the HoC range. With the tall brackets, anything over .750" and you risk breaking the supports like this picture.



Buy the R & R replacement to solve the problem. Don't forget paint!


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Now loosen the bedknife adjustment screws to prepare for removing the bedshoe and knife assembly.


Once the adjusters are loose, you can remove the bedshoe assembly now, by removing the pivot bolts. OR, you can leave it assembled to the reel assembly and remove the whole cutting unit. For my purposes, I'm going to remove the entire unit as an assembly and move it to the workbench. But here are the pivot bolts.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

To remove the drive belts, I'll need to loosen the drive clutch jackshaft tensioner. Here it is from the backside.


If you want to go one more step and replace the roller drive belt, the jackshaft needs to come out. The clamp bolt is usually hard to see and covered in schmoo.



Once the jackshaft is out, the belts literally fall off and you have great access to clean up the belt residue. Don't lose the thrust washers or mix up the order of the parts for the jackshaft assembly. I'll keep it all together until I'm ready to clean and re-assemble We're almost there, all we need to do is remove the reel drive belt.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Oops, my bad! Gotta pull the reel clutch before you can access the bolts to pull the cutting unit off the frame.

Jakes have a special bolt that holds the spring and a zerk fitting. You'll have to jam a wrench in between the spring coils to get it apart.



Now the sleeve, and both keys will slide off.


And now the belt pulley will slide off exposing the bolts to remove the cutting unit.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Now to remove the cutting unit. I'll pull the 1 1/16" nut off the reel axle before removing the three screws that hold the housing in place.



If need be, you can re-install two of these screws into the threaded holes on the bushing to push it out of the bearing housing. If it's really stuck, I'd recommend not using the original screws, any 1/4-20 screw will do.



Now we can pull the three Allen head screws from the bearing housing on both sides of the reel.



And finally the remaining two hex head bolts on either side.



Now the complete unit will drop out of the frame. Now if only I had any room on the bench....


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Ok, back at her here now that the kiddos are in bed and I've cleared some bench space. I'll start by freeing the drive side bearing housing from the bedshoe and then flip her 'round.



Well that was easy, may as well flip 'er now and remove the other housing and the bedshoe.



With the shoe off, we notice that I busted on screw completely and bent a second. Talk about a hard landing.



Let's set the bedshoe assembly aside for now. We'll come back to it soon enough.

All that's left to separate the reel fro the right side bearing housing is to remove this threaded nut.



Slide the housing off and don't lose the spring or the bearing inside..... and that's it. The reel is now scrap metal.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

What is the thickness of the blades in the reel? They look solid.


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## Colonel K0rn (Jul 4, 2017)

This really ought to be a "how to disassemble" pictorial. Frankly, I'm surprised you took such clear pictures; I can't get a clear picture when I'm working on anything mechanical, even though I'm wearing gloves


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## kur1j (Jul 2, 2017)

Add my bullshit to the list.

I was finishing my scalp. No shit 3 feet away from being done, ran over this same place like 3 times already prior in the day.... scrapped the top of a stupid irrigation head. Did basically no damage to this stupid plastic irrigation head...but bent up the corner of 2 of the blades on the reel. Such bullshit...brand new reel too. I think i'll be able to just deal with it by bending it back and it doesn't look like it hasn't busted anything else but i'm just irritated with myself.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

So now how to replace the bearing cones and the inner seal on these bearing housings?



Why the old fashion way of course!



The bearing race will pop out no prob but digging the inner seal out is no fun. I have a small chisel that I ground into a pointed wedge and it works well for folding the outer wall of the seal in and then popping it out from behind.



The drive side should go similar. Here's the empty and clean right side housing.



That's going to be it for the night. I have folks in bed for the night and I can't be out in the garage bangin' and cussin' on this thing. :lol:


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Back in the shop this AM. I'm going to replace the bedshoe bushings as well, since they are cheap and I'm right here. Nothing fancy, just drive them out with a small socket, and a soft face deadblow.



To this point I have been avoiding using specialized tools because I realize that 90% of those looking for this information will not have and do not have a reasonable justification to purchase said tools. That said, I'm using the press to install these bushings. You could rig up a mini-press with a 3/8" bolt, but, and a couple heavy washers.



The inner seal is a bit tricky to install. I drive it in using the flat side of a socket until the seal sits flush.







Then use a smaller socket to send it home in the bore.





Now install the bearing race, if you don't have a bearing race/seal driver kit, pick one up. They're cheap and save you a whole lot of headache.



And we're done, repeat with the other housing and let's head to the next step.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Left side housing with new outer seal and bearing packed.



Replacing the right side outer seal is similar to replacing the inners. Dig it out and drive the new one in.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Hmmm. Looking at this bedshoe again, it's going to be more of a challenge than I thought. Extracting the broken screw is going to be fun as the section of screw head left behind has been slightly pushed into the bedshoe itself. I'm more than likely going to have high spots to knock down too.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

g-man said:


> What is the thickness of the blades in the reel? They look solid.


The 7-blade reel has MUCH thicker blades than an 11-blade. Each blade is roughly .250" thick.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

Screw out! I do not have left-hand twist drills here at home unfortunately as they would have been my first choice for this job. But I was able to drill a 5/32 hole "roughly" down the center of the screw and then use a regular deck screw to back the broken screw out. I used a dremel with a pointed stone to gently grind a starting divot for the drill.



And we can clearly see there were two high spots that a flat file made short work of.



I gently took a scotchbrite disc to the bedshoe to remove any schmoo. It helps to wipe it down with brake cleaner before and after the polish. Keeps the schmoo from hoobachoopin the roloc disc and all. I'll slap on a light coat of grease before I mount the knife.

Speaking of the knife, there a very subtle difference wouldn't you say? :shock:





Bedknife torqued and marked!


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## fp_911 (Apr 10, 2017)

J_nick said:


> Ware said:
> 
> 
> > Ouch. MQ busted his stuff up this weekend too. I better leave mine in the garage until this storm passes.
> ...


My reel looked exactly like his after my incident!

Hopefully they get it welded and repaired sometime this week. But today I'm going out there with the Honda to trim things as best as I can.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

And we have a problem!! After mounting the cutting unit back in the machine, the reel appears to be offset by about .250"-.375". Grumble grumble....





So lesse, I loosen up the spring on the right side bearing and holy moly there's a ton of play in this thing. Lemme tinker a bit and see what's wrong.


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## MasterMech (Sep 24, 2017)

The problem was most definitely the power unit for the ratchet handle on this one.  A quick glance through my service manual and I noticed that the assembly steps for the left bearing housing preceded the ones for the right. :nod: Dumbazz! :lol:

So - after assembling the spacer and the reel bearing clutch, everything fell right into place.



When you do go to set the spring tension on the right hand side, pay attention to the instructions in the Jake service manual. You use the locknut as a gauge to kind of guess how far to tighten the tension nut. Leave only enough thread to fully seat the locknut with no thread showing. The manual says to install the locknut now but DON'T! First install the outer seal carrier and THEN install the locknut, as the seal carrier does not fit over the nut.





The rest of this is just assembling in reverse order of how it came apart. One more tip, don't leave the mower tipped back on the stand for more than a couple hours. If you think you'll want to leave it longer than that, shut the fuel off (which I recommend anyways) and drain the engine oil.


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## Killbuzz (Apr 30, 2017)

Great write up. I now know where to look when the day comes for me to change out my reel. Hopefully it isn't soon....knock on wood.


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