Cub L-22 Mower

[spgeid]

Picked up a cub L-22 mower today. Don't really need one, but always wanted to get on for an occasional play toy. Someone has hacked up the rear mounting bracket. So I will have to find one. Might have a lead on it already. Also, does anyone know what color blue to use to paint it? And for you old time cubbers and farm guys, I see on the rear pulley side there is a bushing that the inner drive shaft spins on. It looks like a brass bushing with a zert to lubricate. On the front where the flywheel is, I see the same lubrication type zert but I can't see a bushing. Also in the parts diagram I don't see any bushing shown. What keeps the shaft from wearing on the front with the lack of a bushing?

Another thing, I had an old rebuilt pitman arm from a cub 22 mower my day had apart. It is the one you will see the picture painted ford blue and white. It uses a brass bushing as a wear point for the wrist pin. The one the guy sold me with the L-22 is yellow. It has a real bearing inside the pitman are box. Has anyone seen this before?

[jrmartin1964]

The pitman with the bronze bushing was used on mowers manufactured from 1947 until about 1952 or '53. The pitman with the actual bearing came into use about 1953, and was used through the end of production. The illustration in the parts manual only shows one bushing, but the parts list on the following pages calls out for two bushings to be used in the outer tube. I've not looked inside the tube of my 22 mower, but armed with that information (and the fact that there's a zerk fitting at each end of the tube) I would assume there is (or should be) one bushing at the rear and another at the front.

Jim

[LeeC]

There is a bushing on both ends of the drive shaft tube. --Lee

[spgeid]

got it all disassembled. Now I can see the bushing on both ends. The one on the flywheel side looks pretty rough and looks like some rust on it. Has anyone ever changed these? What would be the best way to get them out of the tube? Where is the best place to buy them? Anyone know the OD/ID size of the bushings?

I went to ACE today and got a quart of IH blue. Got about 75% of the mower tore apart, cleaned and painted. Luckily on one pin was froze. I can work around it if the Kroil doesn't break it loose overnight.

[Matt Kirsch]

I've got one of each of those pitmans. One bushing, one bearing.

I think the bearing type was optional.

[Yogie]

Be easy on those bushings and use them if you can. I bought mine at IH Case for $40+ each.

['Country' Elliott]

If you're going to mow a LOT with your #22 sickle mower, and you can FIND new replacement bushings...then change them BOTH out and start fresh. If you're only going to do light duty mowing, or just display your Cub with the mower mounted...then there's hardly a need to change to new bushings until you need to.

The paint used on the early #22 mowers (1947- early 1950's) was IH Blue (Van Sickle Blue is a great match). After about 1952 the mowers were all painted IH RED...then yellow when the Cubs went to yellow and cream colored in the 1960's 'Country'

[spgeid]

Thanks all, great information as usual. I went ahead and painted the mower IH blue from ACE. Looks a little darker than the original blue I found hidden underneath bolted connections. As you can see from the pictures, the mower was red. I don't know if the original PO painted it red or the factory overcoated it red. Alot of the pieces had blue underneath the red, some of the bolted connection had only blue on them and some of the bar areas only had red on them. Hopefully by the weekend I can start to put it all back together. I am anxious to give it a try.

As far as the bushings, I am going to try to shine them up a bit with some 2000 grit sandpaper, clean them good, lube them and see what happens.

[LeeC]

Image of Decision 544 From: Wisconsin Historical Society

[SONNY]

The one I just got has been broke several times from hitting stuff while mowing and broke the mower right off the tractor!---then they welded it all back together and it still works good! ( just used it the other day,--tractor it came on needs more gas tank cleaning!) thanks; sonny

[spgeid]

Nice tractor Lee C! Hope you enjoy it as much as I have mine.

[spgeid]

Didn't have the right PTO pulley for a cub lo-boy L-22 Mower. I tried to use a pulley from a standard cub backwards but it kept coming loose. So I purchased a double pulley from surplussupply.com and used my woods mower sheave to put it on the PTO. So far seems to work just right and lines up ok.

[LeeC]

I like it. I think I will try this method on the mower that I cannot get the lower pulley off of (someone beat the end and mushroomed the threads on the drive shaft). --Lee