A little more grinding, welding, drilling ...

Last week I was out of town for a few days, but since the weekend was cold I managed to make some decent progress here and there.  Last post had the deck mocked into place, with a claim of a plan of attack.

The deck is basically finished, mounting holes in place (3/8), plus the alternator mounting completed.  In the following shots you can see the detail, plus a few large dents.  Not sure if I mentioned it, but to get full clearance at the highest deck height a little hammer adjustment was needed.  The design height is about 3 inches, but I can get 4 out of it with the sheet metal massage.  The dents clear the bearings and the sprockets with plenty to spare. 

The alternator pivot bolt has the upper diagonal piece welded to the bottom plate so the alternator doesn't tip under belt tension.  It will be clear once I share an assembled photo.  Not shown in the unpainted pics is a block that anchors the belt tension adjustment.

 View of deck showing mounting tabs and alternator support

Rear View of Deck - Shows 1/4 in. rod brace and aluminum frame tabs.

Step Washers

Above is shown the step washers I made.  The holes in the deck were cut to 1/2 inch, which I misread from the engine drawing.  They are supposed to be 3/8.  I didn't want the motor to shift sideways - ever - so I debated welding the hole smaller or making these.  Welds are hard to drill and they are perfectly centered now, so this seemed the most accurate, albeit the most work.  The center boss is 0.050" tall as the sheet metal is 16 ga.  The OD is 1 inch, and they are about 0.150" thick to allow better oil filter clearance as well ( it's a feature, not a mistake... ).

A different angle with a little paint applied

The rear battery tray, done.

The battery tray also needed to be adjusted to fit the alternator, by about 2 inches.  The semi round mod can be seen above in the photo.  Also shown in the photo is the central lower crossmember notched.  To the immediate left and right of the notch can be seen the two rear deck height adjustment bolts.  Two more bolts go through the front brackets ( second photo above ) to the deck tabs there.

The mod of the tray involved cutting the front lip in half and partly off, bending them inwards, cutting the round piece out of the bottom, bending the lip back and splicing a section in the middle to keep it rigid.  The whole mess was welded together and ground smooth.  It is hard to tell it wasn't that way to start.

The deck isn't back in because I am debating adding a ring of metal strapping around the bottom rim of the deck to reinforce it.  I was looking at a commercial mower that had a similar feature and it might be handy to prevent bending the lip into the spinning blade if I hit a rock or a small stump.  I didn't paint the bottom edge of the deck in anticipation of adding this, plus I ran out of paint anyway.