How To Lubricate A Deck On A Cub Cadet

A Cub Cadet lawn tractor keeps your grass trimmed and looking good, but without proper routine maintenance, you may not get as many years as possible from this piece of machinery. It's important that you keep the lawn mower blades sharp and that you keep the moving parts on the lawn mower deck lubricated. Adding lubricant to the spindles and gears that turn the mower blades is an easy task for you to do yourself.

Step 1

Drive the lawn tractor to a level work surface, such as the garage floor. Set the parking brake on the Cub Cadet by depressing the brake pedal and flipping the parking brake switch to the "On" position. Remove the key from the lawn mower to keep the machine from accidentally starting while you are working on it.

Step 2

Locate the spindler belt idler arm fitting. It is on the top of the mower's deck toward the back. Find the grease zerk that protrudes from it. Wipe off the zerk with a rag, then pump grease into the zerk's fitting using a grease gun filled with 251H EP grease or Number 2 multi-purpose lithium grease. Listen for a slight cracking sound to tell you the joint has enough grease. In most cases, it's two pumps from the grease gun.

Step 3

Find the top of the deck spindles on the mower deck. The spindles turn the blades and have a metal housing over them. There is a grease zerk at the top of each deck spindle visible through the metal housing. Attach the grease gun to one of the zerks and pump two portions of grease into it. Repeat for the other grease zerk. Proper pressure from the grease gun and the right amount of grease should force a small portion of grease to escape around the spindle tops.

Step 4

Lubricate the deck after every 50 hours of mowing time and at the end of the mowing season.