How to replace blades and belts on my Cub Cadet 46” LT1045 Garden Lawntractor

Hey guys, how you doing? It's Henry at Morrison Pro's. Welcome to another episode. Today, I received a couple of new parts from my friends over at UDC Parts. They sent me a new Kevlar drive belt for my Cub Cadet LT1045. I've always said that changing a drive belt on an MTD product is super hard, but with this model, it's simply just one belt. Usually, MTDs have three belts for their variable assist drive system. Hopefully, this is an easy install. I knew I had to change the belt because when I first got this, I was down there poking around and I noticed that the existing drive belt had a lot of cracks in it. I mean, it'll work, but it needs changing eventually. Being that the original owner of this never maintained it, UDC Parts also sent me three blades for the 46-inch deck that has three blades. If you guys are interested in UDC Parts, they specialize in belts, blades, and deck spindles. I'll leave a link in the description. As you can see, they're all individually wrapped with blade guards on them. As you can see, the Bobster insists on being out here. It is a really nice day. We both want to enjoy the sun before winter comes, so you could change the blades in a variety of ways. You can drive this up those mini ramps so that you can just stick your hand in there with an impact wrench, remove the nut, and drop all three blades, and put the new one on. But this deck is really easy to remove. Just the three-point connection and the belt around the double step pulley. It's relatively easy to remove the deck and thus making it easier to change the blades. Also, I need access to get to the drive belt anyway, so I'm going to remove the deck. Guys, that was literally like three minutes from removing the deck and putting the mower on its side. The deck was super easy to remove. As you can see the condition of the deck, these are the three blades, and yes, they definitely need replacement. I mean, these will still work for a while, but definitely damaged at the tips. This tape that I have there was to fix a couple of rotholes with JB Weld on the other side. They're stuck there pretty well. I'm just going to leave it there. Here's the underbelly. This is a good look at it. Sure beats crawling down there on your back. There's the drive belt. This is what I was talking about. I noticed this when I first got it. Look, it'll still hold. Don't get me wrong. You're not driving on the highway with it, right? It'll work, but yes, needs to be changed. Looks like it goes around here, right? Over the transmission pulley. That's it. There's no variable drive or anything like that where normal MTD ones have like five pulleys back here, you know? But this is a hydro, so it ought to be good. So just slip it over there, route it through here, and oh dear, has to go around the top double stack pulley. That's going to be a trick to get it around here. I sure hope I don't have to remove the electric PTO. We'll see. I'm going to try to do it without it, but look. Right there, see the keepers? I think I might have to remove the double stack pulley to get it in there. And we'll see, but it doesn't seem very hard. I'm going to try to do this first. So I was inspecting it and given the belt being in between the keepers, I think it's a lot easier if I just dropped the entire pulley and PTO. I'd have to first remove this keeper here. It's just a bolt that goes right in there. Remove this, pull this down so I can get that belt off of that pulley and then pull the old belt out of here. That's the best way to do it. Boba. So what I thought was really easy was not easy at all. Got the new belt on there over the transmission pulley, over the top pulley here. I had to remove this pulley to get it in between the keeper. Trust me, it was impossible. The belt was too taut. And I measured when I pulled the old one off and matched it with the new one and they're exactly the same size. But because this is a newer belt, it's stiffer and it's not missing the material that it was missing from the old one. And looking at the old one now, after removing it, you could see it's in pretty rough shape, especially this area. Look at that. Chunks are missing, split. Definitely needed changing. Look at this. How much longer do you think this would have lasted? Look at that. It's only a half inch belt. Usually MTDs are 5.8s, but that's like, damn, a couple of millimeters left and this would have snapped. So I'm glad I changed it. I am a little worried though. It seems really tight. That's what she said. And the brake is on. It's pretty taut. This was a pain. I had to bend the keepers out of the way. It still wouldn't come off because the top pulley, belt drive pulley wouldn't come off. So I had to bend the keeper out to get it in. Putting on the PTO was a pain in the ass too. I greased it while I was down here. So I think that's right. I guess I should try it, huh? Hello. Why? Just needs a better battery level. And it seems very precise now. The minute you touch the pedal, zip, it starts moving. So belt works. Everything's fine. So now, part two of our repair. Removing these three blades from its spindles and replacing them should be easy enough. It's a 15 16ths using a half inch impact. These are the originals or not, but it's going this way. So you want to put a block here, break a bar. I hope it doesn't break anything and cause yourself more problems. One. We can remove one. You can see this is the one, two, three, four, five, six star, Israeli star. And everything looks good here. See, smooth. Put some grease on the star, not the threads. So here's the new one. Seems slightly shorter, doesn't it? Almost two inches shorter. That's going to be an issue. You know why? Because then you're going to have a strip of grass that's not covered. It all has to match. So this goes counterclockwise. So look, what I'm saying is you see the difference here? This inch and a half of space is going to be unless because it's going this way, because it's staggered, right? It cuts there. I see. So it's designed that way because this blade is in front of these two side ones. So whatever the first one doesn't get, the side ones will get, you're going to cut it. Yep. Okay. I get it. All right. So it should be okay. But I mean, either way, I could only get one on here. See, look, it tells you grass side. So you know that it's on right. One of the biggest problems that people put on their blades upside down and they're like, Hey, it's not really cutting very well. Well, because you put it backwards, dummy. Or like Fred Sanford would say, because I ain't going nowhere. So you could tell the spindles are good and there's no play. So yeah, I think that'll, that'll do. I still feel that. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. So look, I think the forward blade, the middle blade is supposed to be short. I put the middle blade on the right side. This one should be the middle blade. That's what it is. Let me look at the other one. See the two side ones are longer than the middle one. That's what it is. All right. This one out grass side up. There we go. Now we're cooking. See that's what it was. I had the middle blade on the sides. The middle blade is shorter than the side ones. Makes sense. Boy, I'm glad I figured that out. Now I just got to try to get these off. So this overlaps this area. So whatever this little space here is not getting, it is getting it from an overlap. So am I going to leave this? Cause I can't get it off or should I at least try? I'm going to take the Bobster back in because he looks a little thirsty. We'll come back later and try to get those nuts off. Might even try a blow torch. It hasn't been easy so far. Has it What in the world's happening? What the hell? Escorting just a bunch of little bikes going by? The hell? What a gross use of government resources. Maybe it was one of those things like make a wish. One of those guys that's doing something for charity, like riding their bike from California to Long Island or something. Maybe it's something like that. Who am I to judge, right? Anyway, I'm on my way to pick up six big bags of fertilizer that somebody was thrown out. It's like weed and feed and crabgrass pre-emergent. Brand new, in bags, sealed. That ----'s like $50 a bag and it's not far from my house. It's probably expired. That ----'ll work for years. It's mostly crabgrass pre-emergent. One weed and feed is gone. That's still worth it. So I'm home. So one bag of weed and feed, which is good, and the rest is like pre-emergent, you know, for crabgrass. And it's also fertilizer. And there's no expiration date and the packages are sealed and there's no water and it's soft. Should be good. I'll store it for next season. As you guys know, while working on the garage, especially my cub cadet, the garage is always dusty and dirty and filthy. Not to mention my garage door is always open. And in the fall, you got the leaves and the wind blowing all over the place. I have leaves and debris all over my garage. So I use what's very popular these days are these mini air blowers. They're really cool. And they're surprisingly strong. You have these mini ones and you have the medium sized ones. They even make them bigger. Sure beats the gas ones. You just pick it up and go, you know, no worrying about it. The carburetor's dirty, mixing fuel, priming it, making a mess. I used to say electric blowers blow or suck. But with the technology these days, the motors and the lithium ion battery power that it goes through, these things are really powerful. My friends over at Vitova just sent me a mini one, handheld, tiny, like for keyboard dusting. Things around the house. Comes with a little bag, instructions, cleaning dust brushes, different nozzle attachments. And what else? A USB-C cable for recharging it. And a lanyard. You don't want this thing to go flying off your wrist. And there it is. Little tiny air duster from Vitova. Long press the power button in the back and it's full with four bars. I have to know what this button's for. Oh, battery eject. Like a magazine in a gun. Counterclockwise, quarter turn, nozzle comes off. You can put the big longer nozzle on. Horizontal looking one for keyboards. There's some leavage on my deck. And you could blow water to dry things faster. So this electric air duster is five volts, two amps per hour input. Capacity's 3,000 milliamps per hour. And the model number is the X303. With a mag release. Now I've got some dry mouth. If you guys want to check out the Vitova electric air dryer or handheld blower, I'll leave a link in the description. It's handy for DIYers like me. Now back to the video. All right, I'm back. It's been an hour. Let's see. Will the penetrating oil have any effect? Don't hurt yourself, Henry. God. The heat works. Actually, I can't remember the last time that actually worked for me. That's awesome. Five dollars if I grab it. What are you, nuts? Watch this. See how hot that is. How about that, fellas? Determination pays off. Three-eighths impact doesn't work. Try a half-inch impact. That doesn't work. Try a breaker bar. Breaker bar doesn't work. Put some penetrating oil on it and try all those things again. That doesn't work. Blowtorch. Blowtorch works. With an impact. Half-inch. With blocks and penetrating oil. That's great. I'll still keep these three blades in my shed somewhere. You never know when you might need them in a pinch. But this belt is done-ski. That belt's done-ski. All right. I didn't even burn myself. Yet. I'm going to wait for this to cool down a little. Look, it's still smoldering because there's some grass over there. The spindles have been heated up and I've got brand new ski blades from my friends over at UDC Parts. If you guys would like exact match, almost better than OEM parts, belts, blades, and spindles, go check out UDC Parts. I'll leave a link in the description. Now, I'll just put it back on and we're done. As you can see, I was testing all different levels and I stopped at three because I still want it to kind of grow. Not to mention, I just reseeded a couple of weeks ago, so I don't want to blow all the non-germinated seeds that are still floating around. Worked great. It smoked a little in the beginning, but it kind of burned off later on. Not sure about that. So, I'm not going to lie, it turned out a lot harder than I thought it would be. But of course, sometimes that's what you run into. Something that's so simple, you think, I'll be done in two seconds. Took me about three hours to do all this stuff. But of course, we ran into hiccups when I had to get those rusty nuts off the deck. But in the end, I was successful using heat. So, we got three brand new blades on the deck and a brand new Kevlar drive belt, all from my friends over at UDC Parts. So, just some fall maintenance, getting your mower ready for when the leaves come out. You know you're going to be using it quite a lot. Remember, raking is for losers. Work smarter, not harder. Get a lawn tractor with a mulcher blade or something. Get a mulch plug and just mulch those leaves into nothing. Have the minced particles of leaves go back into the soil and act as a natural fertilizer. Not everybody picks up free fertilizer off the curb. So yeah, I got this listed for $13.75. And I'm not going to raise it just because I changed brand new blades and a brand new drive belt. I just feel better about getting $13.75 now than before. Pretty good tractor. I got it for free. Free. Free. Free. That's right. Free. But then again, when do I not get it for free? As a matter of fact, if it's not free, I'm not getting it. Anybody can pay for it. The challenge is to get your ---- for free. Hope you guys enjoyed the video. Remember to like, share, and subscribe so I can continue to make you fall maintenance projects on your lawn tractor, or in this case, garden tractor. Know the difference. We'll see you guys next time on Mowers and Blowers. See you guys next time on Mowers and Blowers.