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Very old bunton walk bhind!

5K views 17 replies 10 participants last post by  Green Clean 
#1 ·
Yesterday I bought a old bunton 48" walk behind with a 12.5 kawasaki for 300 bucks! This mower starts in 2 pulls and runs very good. It does need some work though which I plan to do on rainy days. Today since its raining I decided to take the far right spindel of to prep the machine to a new one... I unbolted everything but I can not get the belt pulley dinsconected form the spindel... can anybody help me? Once i get this mower all fixed up with gonna be a champ. These old commercial mowers weigh half what new commerical mowers weigh. Even if I put 1,000 bucks into this machine and completly rebuild it I feel its worth it over a new mower because of its light weight! Thanks for your help! Jason2 this mower is almost exact to the old bobcat you recently bebuilt! Im sure you can help...

PS. This machine also needs a new muffler! kawasaki is out of there mind... 90 bucks!!!

[Edited by Evan528 on 04-08-2001 at 03:34 PM]
 
#2 ·
The one thing that I will always remember was when I worked for my neighbor here and there he had a 15 year old bunton 48" belt and a brand new scag 48" hydro. Our pick every time.....you guessed it, we would fight over the old bunton!!(believe it or not ;) )

It was so quiet you could here that awesome sound of the grass cutting. It was a really smooth mower for its age.

Good Luck with it, I'm sure you'll be happy.

Sorry I can't help you with the spindle. :(
 
#4 ·
Evan,

Congrats on your new Bunton! Those old Ransomes/Bobcat/Bunton's are sure overbuilt. I haven't had the pulleys off of my spindles. So I can't help you there. Still haven't finished mine yet. It was moved to the backburner last year. Since I have no shop I didn't really want to work on it outside this winter. Once the spring cleanups slow down I'll probably finish it up. I built an OCDC for my Lazer this weekend so maybe next weekend if it's rainy I'll get back to the Bobcat.

Post some pics if you get the chance. I'd love to see your new toy.
 
#5 ·
Evan, You need a gear puller to get the pully off the spindle. If you unmounted the spindle from the deck remount it. Take the blade bolt put it thru the top of the spindle, so that the head of the bolt is on top.The gear puller has 2 or 3 jaws that mount around the pulley and a center bolt that will mount on top of the blade bolt. Once you have the gear puller it's pretty self explanatory from there. Hope this helps.
 
#6 ·
STOP! Before you use the gear pulley, there's one thing you need to do - or you'll cause heavy damage. I'm very familiar with these machines. The pulley has a set of screws/allen wrench style hex screws that holds the pulley in place on the spindle. There are almost always two - one goes directly into the lead keyway on the spindle, the other is at a 90 degree angle on the pulley to that (i.e. 3 or 9 o'clock). You access these screws by feel - by putting an allen wrench in the belt groove of the pulley and poking around. I think most are 5/16 hex. A bit of advice - these screws strip easily (the hex). Use lots of WD-40/bolt loosener and a very sharp/new allen wrench. Because you can't see these screws, this job can be real difficult if the screws are stripped/rusted in. You can't drill them out if they're frozen there - because you can't get at them with a drill. Heating them up is also a marginal operation at best.
After you get the screws loose, use the 3 jaw gear puller to get the pulley off as described by Dillon. Do remount the spindle to the deck before trying all this - it'll make the job much easier. Good luck, if you need more help, don't hesitate to ask, I change (and re-build ) about 6 of these spindles every week.
 
#7 ·
Thanks, Jason. You beat me to it, I was going to tell him the same thing. I also own two of these machines; they are the John Deeres, but that was what Deere was using back in '83 and '84. One other thing to look out for on these machines is the snaprings on the spindles that hold them up in the housings. They have a tendency to wear out and loosen up, allowing the spindle to drop, resulting in an uneven cut. Some times, you may even have to clean the snapring groove out a little with the hacksaw to deepen it a bit. This seems to help.
 
#10 ·
Went to the dealer today to order the new spindal assembly. Turns out this mower is a bobcat not a Bunton. This mower has been painted so many times and is so old there are no markings! It looked like a bobcat to me but I took the guys word who I bought it from that it was a bunton. Im glad I didnt go ahead and order a bunton spindal out of a parts catalague ;) ! I didnt take the spindel off myself, my neighbor down the street is a handy man and said he would take care of it. When I came in form work yesterday it was done! today I installed a new muffler and changed all the filters since it was raining. Parts sure are expensive for this mower!! I hope to have it up and running like new by friday!
 
#11 ·
Hey i used to have one just like that early solid caster wheeled Ransome.Greenline still sells alot of parts for these. They are prone to stress cracks on deck and where engine sits at bolt holes had to have mine welded.Good find for 300$$ cant go wrong there.easy to lift front end up over berms and stuff.
 
#12 ·
I got this mower running great! Only thing is that i just cant seem to get it to cut perfectly even. I have messed with the spacers on the wheels and the blades 20 times and it still just cuts un even! I dont even know what else to try! any help would be greatly apreciated!
 
#15 ·
Check the positioning of the spindles like I had mentioned earlier in this thread. It sounds like that may be what it is. Whatever side is cutting lowest, (step down), underneath the pulley on the top of the deck for that spindle, is a small snapring that fits into a slit like goove around that spindle. Occasionally, that snap ring can slide up - allowing the whole spindle assembly to drop lower. It's hard to tell by just looking at the pulleys at the top of the deck, because it doesn't slide down very far. To do this, you must remove blade assembly and bolt, remove BOTTOM snapring from underneath the deck on that spindle, and remove the belt from the top pulley. Then, you can use something SOFTER THAN STEEL to pond the spindle up and through the housing from the bottom of the deck, up. You can also use something to GENTLY pry on the pulley from the top to help lift. Once you get the spindle up far enough, you can usually reach you fingers down underneath th top pulley and slide the snapring back down into the groove. The only thing with this, is once that ring has moved, it is susceptable to allow that spindle to slide down again. You may just want to change that snapring and clean out that or deepen that groove like I said in a previous post. And, WHY are my posts so long???
 
#16 ·
thanks runner. I will try doing that tomomorrow evening after work! I keep running out of places to test and see if the cut is level cause my lawn is only so big..... I have cut my lawn 3 times this week just trying to get this mower cutting decent!
 
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