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We recently bought a Husqvarna M ZT-52 zero-turn lawn mower. It's been working wonderfully, except yesterday, the center blade and retaining bolt fell shot off while I was mowing.

We flipped the deck, and removed the two remaining blades and bolts, and reattached them all, torquing to what was listed in the manual (55 Ft-lbs). Thinking all was well, I started mowing again today, and the left-hand blade shot off after about six hundred feet.

Now I'm not opposed to getting my hands dirty, but this is a new machine (13 engine hours clocked), and having to halt everything to reattach these stupid blades is getting old pretty quickly.

What can I do to keep these dang blades and retaining bolts under the cutting deck where they belong?

Gabe Evans
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Since the blade is balanced you probably don't want to use lock washers, but you can get away with LockTite or some othe thread lockers. Just be sure that the one you use is reversible. Some will make it so the blade never comes off, even when you want it too. Generally speaking LockTite Red is the permanent kind. You want blue, or purple LockTite. There are other brands as well but that's the one I'm familiar with.

Thinking more about it, putting lock washers on the bolts would probably work as well since the weight you're adding is evenly distributed around the rotation of the blade (both retaining bolts are the same distance from the hub). Not to mention they are likely close to the hub, and the weight of the washers is really small. So they should work, but the thread locker will certainly keep the bolts from separating from the nut or whatever they are threaded into.

I hope that helps!

cdunn
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