# JD Hydro 185 won't blow grass



## Country Boy (Mar 18, 2010)

I have a JD Hydro 185 mower with a 38" deck here in the shop that is baffling me. When you mow with it, it will leave a windrow down the center of the deck behind you. It does blow some grass out the discharge, and what does come out comes out with force. The blades are razor sharp, the deck is clean and smooth underneath. I checked the belts and bearings and all are in great shape. The blades are a standard lift blade, not a mulching style. I checked the engine RPM at full throttle and it is running at 3200 RPM, right where its supposed to. It almost seems like the left blade is tossing the grass out the back of the deck and the right one is tossing it out the side. I even played with the blade timing, skewing the blades to each other at different angles to see if that would affect blowing performance but it did nothing. Anyone see this before?


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## 463 (Aug 10, 2015)

There might be a blade installed upside down? Worth a look


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## Country Boy (Mar 18, 2010)

I can double check, but I pulled them off and sharpened them this morning. They were pretty good to start but I wanted to be sure that wasn't the problem. It came in with the complaint that it was clumping grass pretty bad when mowing. The blades were installed new last spring.


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## TominDallas (Aug 4, 2015)

I'm stabbing in the dark but I'll throw a guess out. A piece missing from inside the deck? The spot-welded guide, deflector... whatever that piece is called.


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## Country Boy (Mar 18, 2010)

Right now there is a baffle welded in at the rear of the deck between the blades, and the front of the deck is completely smooth all the way across with no baffle. I've seen decks with front baffles and decks without. Not sure what style this one is supposed to be.


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## EdF (Sep 15, 2014)

I'll take a WAG at it....wrong blades.....CCW blades in a CW deck or vice-versa.


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