My two year old Troy Built, self-propelled Tuf-Cut 210 had a front wheel that started wobbling badly. Since I really don't use the mower much I didn't know why the wheel should have gone bad so soon. I removed the wheel and noticed that the inner metal bushing had frozen itself to the axle shaft and began to spin inside of the plastic wheel causing the inside of the axle hole to wear out completely. The wheel went bad on the left front of the mower. The wheel on the right front of the mower seemed ok until I took it off and noticed that it too was just beginning to spin on the inner shaft but it had not really done much damage to the inside of the wheel yet.
I took both wheels off and freed up both inner bushings and removed them. The axle itself seems to be in pretty good shape so I will be able to re-use it this time. In the future I will have to be more diligent about checking the lubricant on the axle shafts and re-lube them periodically. My old mower is a strictly push type with plastic wheels that never needed and lube so I just assumed that this Troy Built was the same. But is isn't so be sure to keep the wheels rolling freely in front so they don't chew the center out of the wheels.
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Bob Crane is the author of http://www.americanwrenches.com - a site that helps many find tools they need for their projects.
