toro push mowers stripping rear gears for self drive!!!

[jturkey69]

Hey all...this year we switched to toro recycler self propelled rear drive mowers..8 to be exact...split between 3 grass cutters with quite a feqw accounts...purchased in Feb and May...all of them have had the rear wheels with nylon gears replaced at least 4-5 times...along with safety or drive cables. I have had no luck in finding the vendor for the nylon gears to order them separate, and also unable to get any help from a toro email inquiry...(go figure) The shop had used Lawnboys in previous years, and I noticed the rear wheels ring gear as well as pinion is steel...we had a plethora of replacement front wheels for those(due to being heavy is my guess)

personal cutting and mech background..up until recently..I have had a weekly grass cutting route, and never had wheel failure...only one mower had issues of not wanting to start minutes after running, and lost a safety handle somewhere enroute to an account...solved by bungee cord in the field..which I now prefer as I can walk away with mower running to move or pick up trash. Now I am foreman/mech, and need to know if this can be fixed, or to cut the loss.

does anyone have any info or tips so I can solve this problem? I realize these are not commercial mowers, and I was not involved in the purchase of these, but I am now trying to either fix the flaw, modify the flaw, or cut the loss. One thing of note...today after ordering 4 rear wheels for two mowers...I personally started to replace the wheels vs our other mech(who uses airtools) as I was threading in the wheel bolt by hand(mower tipped on side) I noticed the wheel to a wobbly dance every turn of the thread (like putting washers on a 3 of the 5 studs of a car, then mounting wheel, and then lugs) I left it alone, but tomorrow I will attempt to make sure the bolt is true and straight, but any other insight would be grateful! I tend to overthink things, but then again, I tend to take care of my equipment I am using.

thanks for any insight!!

[kymowboy]

Sounds like you may need to change the drive pinions as well as the wheels/gear assemblies, new wheel bolts might be in order too.
I recently replaced the pinions and wheels on my super recycler after 5 years and the gears were steel. You might want to see it SR wheels will fit your recycler and upgrade to the steel gear.

[charmill26]

I would say regardless of whatever problem is coming from the mowers and cutting that much with them it would be best to switch to commericals. (I know you said that). I bought a new recycler last fall and it is already seeing better days. I'm not complaining I knew what I bought and got much more than my $'s worth out of it already. It's not my main mower but I use it more than most lco's use 21s. I can only imagine how much you guys are using yours