Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
We run 3 which have done enormous amounts of work and not seen this it's the front wheels that usually end up with lots of play.
Anyway the rear wheels have a ring gear running around their inner circumference which a geared cog which is on the end of the drive shaft from the gearbox meshes into to drive the wheel this cog is retained by something similar to a circlip and a small pawl. Take the wheel off to see if either the circlip or pawl is missing, if not sounds like the drive shaft is either bent or the shaft and gearbox have lost their retaining fixtures. Or the ring gear or drive cog are damaged but usually you will notice a noise if they are. Hope that helps
Thanks Peter
The mower went In for a service end of last year and to replace a broken throttle cable.
I picked it up once completed and took it home.
Started it a week or 2 later and the drive was making an awful noise but only with the wheels on the ground. Fine when lifting the mower off the floor and letting the wheels turn.
A grinding noise.
I took it back to the dealer and told them it was fine before I dropped it off. They said they wouldn't of touched anything to do with that area during the service/work etc. Thay had it for a few days and checked it out. Told me it gets better after running it for a bit and that the hydro drive is a sealed unit that can't be accessed and sometimes this happens with these mowers.
Anyhow I have been using it for the season. When I start it the noise is loud and the drive is slow but after 5/10 minutes the drive picks up pace and the noise is a little less.
The dealer (not a honda dealer, mower was brought online) did offer to take it to another dealer who was honda and see if it could be sorted under warranty but because it was still mowing alright I declined.
Now out of warranty period.
I wonder if this is the problem and why the wheel is now buckling inwards
James, having given this some more thought it's unlikely the noise and the wheel are related .
Anyway back to the wheel firstly, could the wheel bearing be faulty? What I would do is take both wheels off and then you can compare the faulty side with the good side as they are identical apart from the drive shafts which are longer on one side than the other, think the left one is the longer? I still suspect that the gearbox / drive shaft is loose allowing movement of that left wheel. I do wonder if the servicing dealer has dropped the mower and bent the left drive shaft? Difficult to prove.
Onto the gearbox noise. 2 of ours have very similar symptoms, noisy and slow when cold but ours are 3 years old and have had hard lives, they started with these symptoms 12 months ago at 2 years old but still work ok and will be repl aced when they die. Replacing the gearbox is an uneconomic repair.
Some advice - don't buy online you will not get a helpful response from a franchised dealer for warranty claims, Honda particularly make it very difficult to make warranty claims ( this info from our Honda dealer) and you need someone to fight your corner. Using a non Honda dealer for servicing will not be looked on kindly by Honda for warranty claims.
To summarise - sort the wheel out and put up with the gearbox noise but I do wonder if the 2 two issues are connected to something the servicing dealer has done, a 12 month old HRX should not have a noisy gearbox unless you have just been unlucky. We rate these machines and abuse them and will continue to buy them.
I had this problem with my brand new hrx straight out the box and it was a gearbox replacement under warranty by my local dealer
no problems since
Noise or leaning wheel?
Thank you for you time and expertise Peter.
I also suspected the the mower had been dropped whilst being serviced but impossible to prove so either had to try and get something done elsewhere under warranty or put up with it.
I decided to put up with it and hasn't been any worse for the last 4-5 months but now noticed the wheel in the last week and the two issues could be related.
I will remove both rear wheels and take a look.
If I were to swap them over and the problem moves to the other side I will know its an issue with the wheel right?
Likewise I the problem remains that side it a problem with the shaft?
James, yes try that although I think it's unlikely to be the wheel or wheel bearing. I suspect a bent drive shaft and if this is correct you could attempt to straighten it VERY CAREFULLY as you don't want to put too much pressure on where the shaft exits the gearbox! Let me know what you find.
So I have removed both rear wheels. The shaft seems fine but the bolt the wheel screws into on the left hand side seems to have come off. The one on the right hand side is fixed and doesn't move.
This is causing play in the wheel which has also caused some minor marks on the rachet cog that turns the wheel. Small score line through the cog teeth which I presume has been caused be the wheel movement.
There is a small chunk of the bolt stuck on the wheel height adjuster thingy maybe you can see I the picture. If I turn the bolt slightly so it doesn't sit I the chunk missing if allows me to do the wheel up a bit tighter as if there was a washer or two more behind the bolt which stops the movement in the wheel but now the wheel is facing inwards slightly
Just had a look on L and S engineers and they do a whole new left rear arm so may have to buy that, remove the rachet cog and fit a new arm on
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next