brucec32
06-07-2004, 11:16 PM
I bought a tool to properly measure blade height under the deck, and when I moved to a new area, I decided to check to make sure my blades were set up right. Before I could tell from experience what was "right" and when I cut at 3" it "looked like" 3" afterwards. But with new grasses here, I wanted to be sure.
After checking air pressure in tires and confirming the tool was accurate, I checked the blade height on my '03 Lazer Z hp 48" deck. When at the 4" setting the front tip of the blades reads exactly 3.5". The rears are about 1/4" higher. which seems to be right in terms of the setup. So the actual height, on a hard surface, is .5" below the indicated height on the machine.
My question: Is this the way it's supposed to be? I've never really given it a lot of thought over the years, just trusting the settings on my mowers themselves. I know that with the tires riding up over thick turf the actual cut level is probably about 4", possibly even more on the spongy St. Augustine here, so that makes sense. I was just curious if Exmark designed it to be this way.
I checked my two other large mowers, a 32" Toro with the Exmark fixed deck, and a Toro floater with their own design. The results, in both cases, were the same. Exactly a 1/2" lower front blade height than that indicated by the pin position or spacer/caster/rear axle setup. So my assumption is everything is ok, because the odds of three seperate mowers being off by exactly 1/2" are pretty long.
After checking air pressure in tires and confirming the tool was accurate, I checked the blade height on my '03 Lazer Z hp 48" deck. When at the 4" setting the front tip of the blades reads exactly 3.5". The rears are about 1/4" higher. which seems to be right in terms of the setup. So the actual height, on a hard surface, is .5" below the indicated height on the machine.
My question: Is this the way it's supposed to be? I've never really given it a lot of thought over the years, just trusting the settings on my mowers themselves. I know that with the tires riding up over thick turf the actual cut level is probably about 4", possibly even more on the spongy St. Augustine here, so that makes sense. I was just curious if Exmark designed it to be this way.
I checked my two other large mowers, a 32" Toro with the Exmark fixed deck, and a Toro floater with their own design. The results, in both cases, were the same. Exactly a 1/2" lower front blade height than that indicated by the pin position or spacer/caster/rear axle setup. So my assumption is everything is ok, because the odds of three seperate mowers being off by exactly 1/2" are pretty long.