I headed over to Rich's house after work today.
I last left him and the mower at his place Sunday night.
Yesterday, Rich was able to locate the weird bearing and get a couple of them. I pulled apart one of the blade motors enough to at least identify the commutator-end bearing. Rich picked up a pair of those as well.
When I got to Rich's, he already had the steering bearings in, and the steering back together, including having repainted the plate the steering column goes through.
We pulled off the bottom plate of the blade motor, which was a big pain in the butt! It took lots of torch heat and and bearing-puller-skills to get the blade hub off.
Once finally apart, we could see how badly corroded the drive-end bearing was. No wonder it pulled enough amps to heat up the power cable!
We got the bearing off and put the armature in Rich's basement lathe. A little emery paper cleaned up the drive shaft and commutator very well. We ran a tap through the blade bolt hole again to clean up the threads that got a little messed up from the puller. We pulled the end off the second motor a little different to keep the threads nice.
I forgot to bring my camera with, but I will take some photos of the armatures before I put the motors back together. I still need the drive-end bearings before motor reassembly.
Fun, Fun, Fun!
PS: I am also AMAZED at what a difference air in the tires make! The front wheels are now brand-new, but the back tires are flat. Trying to move the tractor, it felt like the parking brake was on! We put more air in the rear tires, and it rolled great, right up the ramps into the back of my truck!
Any bets on how long the air stays in there? I am guessing it's flat already...