Bracket tacked in place. You can see that this would be the weakest part which is why it cracked here. The middle part goes around the center blade pulley and they did add significant strength with the lip. As to why it cracked at all though, I don't know. Maybe someone just ran the deck into stuff. I mean this is from the mid to late 80s so let's call it 30 years old anyway. As Adam put it "it had a whole life before you got it."
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You can see the stress cracks pretty well here. He basically just welded all of them and then we ground it back down. The weld penetrates so in theory you are left with a solid piece of metal again.
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Ian enjoyed the welding mask.
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Shot from under. This should really be a good penetration in those cracks. We did not bother grinding this side.
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The patch job. This ended up being fairly time consuming so we didn't really get to finish. Plus it was getting late. Better than it was at least.
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All primed up. Yes I did the underside of the deck also.
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You can tell from the drips that I was extra careful.
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If I really cared, I could buy the correct orange Simplicity paint. The Rustoleum black will look pretty crappy admittedly but much of it is somewhat concealed when the deck is on the machine so whatever. Not trying to make a show tractor here...