Gauge Wheels

Summer is approaching quickly and with that comes mowing the lawn. Many folks use a riding lawn mower to cut their grass. These lawn tractors have large decks to mow a big yard in a short amount of time. There are negative effects of these decks on uneven yards, because they tend to scalp the high areas. This is why gauge wheels are put on a mower deck.

These wheel are often misused on John Deere and other equipment that are designed to have the deck "hang" from the frame of the lawn tractor to achieve the proper height adjustment. Their are some companies that actually use the gauge wheel to adjust the height of the cut, but John Deere isn't one of those companies. So reading any further will just be for your knowledge.

The gauge wheels on a John Deere and like designed mower decks are intended to guide the deck up and over a hump or obstacles that may be in the mowing path. These wheels are intended to be a 1/4" to 3/8" above the bottom of the deck. The wheel should never ride on the ground. This can be seen when the gauge wheel becomes flattened from the weight of the deck over time.

John Deere designs their tractor so that the weight of the deck is supported by the frame of the tractor rather than by the ground. These are not to set the height of the cut. JD has a knob and adjuster that stops the lift mechanism to achieve cutting height. Also, the anti-scalping wheel is the roller directly at the front of the deck. It is intended to lift the deck over items to insure the middle blade doesn't cut the grass too low.

To adjust this you will need to pull the mower onto a level concrete or hard surface and lower the deck into operating position. Turn off the tractor and grab a tape measure or ruler. with the deck lowered to mowing position check the height of the gauge wheel in relativity to the mower deck. There should be that gap we talked about earlier between the bottom of the wheel and the bottom of the deck. Hope this makes your mowing easier. Any questions wanted answer mail them to awan318@gmail.com.