# Disc mower leak



## CowboyDave (Apr 24, 2018)

Howdy, new to the forum, but a long time lurker.

Need some advice, I'm working on a Sitrex DM7 disc mower that I picked up at an auction last fall. I did my homework and it is identical to the Rhino DM7 and New Holland HM236 type of mowers with a gear bed design. Seemed like good backup to my troublesome sickle swather at a great price.

I tore into the machine today. Right off the bat, I could NOT turn the turtles by hand. Not that surprised as it had sat for a few years prior. After removing the retraining nuts from the turtle caps and some convincing with a hammer, I finally freed them up. They all turned and so did the PTO shaft, but still rather stiff. As a few of the turtles needed some welds anyway, I decided to remove them and inspect.

After removing the turtles, I scraped out all of the old twine, hay and dirt that had built up underneath them. Then, I noticed a problem...oil had started seeping out from around the shaft on the last turtle at the lowest point of the cutter bar.

Now, my first instinct is to replace the seal referenced in the manual, which means destroying a good bearing. As this is my first time working on one of these, is this something I should even worry about? Or will bolting down the turtle act as a seal regardless? See the schematic. Any advice is appreciated!


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## bluefarmer (Oct 10, 2010)

If it was me!! That may be the pod that has the restriction, unless it was all the twine wadded up under there. I would put it back together and keep a eye on it, if you are going to ruin a bearing anyway putting the seal in. Although I am not familiar with that type!


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

Welcome to HT

Reinstalling the turtle will not seal the cutter bar. Leaking seal needs to be R&R. I would think one could remove old seal with a slide-hammer with an attached screw.


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## TJ Hendren (May 12, 2017)

Dad bought one back in the mid 90's, it cut very well and left a nice swath. However in the field we never could get the inner shoe to lift off the ground when lifting on a headland, it did fine in transport just not in the field as far as the lifting issue goes. He traded it the next year. Hope they fixed that.


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## CowboyDave (Apr 24, 2018)

Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it.

We moved cows yesterday, so I didn't have a chance to work on it again until today.

Anyway, I got to looking at it and I realized the o-ring I highlighted on the diagram (#44) is actually pressed in from the backside of the support (#45) as is the bearing on top of it (#57). I simply unbolted the support and wiggled the entire shaft assembly out. Then, pressed out the the o-ring and the bearing together. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be!

Also, funny enough, both bearings were completely seized in that turtle. Good call on the R&R, Jim. New bearings and seals will be here on Friday. Going to replace the seals in turtle #1 as well since the 'high hat' was full of water just like #7. The others spin freely without binding and without leaks, so I'll just heat check those once I get it put back together.

After I weld up a few cracks and repair the tears in the canvas, I might just have a disc mower.


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## 1brokefarmer (Feb 26, 2020)

Cowboy Dave, I've got a Sitrex DM7 in need of a bearing on the inner (hatted) pod, and couple other turtles as well. Could you or anyone tell me where I can find a good book, Or exploded view like with a parts list, like the one you put in your original post? Also have you found any place to get reasonably priced replacement parts? No dealer near me (NE Oklahoma). Closest to me is in Wichita< KS and they have stopped carrying the Sitrex mowers because of the high parts cost.

Thanks


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## Okie farm boy (Sep 14, 2020)

Https://forddistributing.com

They're mostly sitrex but they've got a bunch of full user manuals you can download for free. I've got a sitrex dm7 , its a 9' disc mower. They sell under several other names, farm maxx,enorossi,morra, new idea etc but they all pretty much use the same design and parts. You'll find every single part number and full set up and adjustment inductions about 70 pages or so total but it has literally everything you could possibly ask contained in they're manuals. Good luck


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## Okie farm boy (Sep 14, 2020)

If you can't find what you need there I'll send you an email copy. Also if you don't know what year your mower is, they're are like 4 different manuals for dm7, just download all of them and there are specific parts changes from the ram tube shape from square to round, the end skid shoe is mounted differently one has a vertical bolt flange and one doesn't, one year used a double float spring on the end of the ram tube and some don't.... anyway just scroll down through until you get to the dm7 section and look at the first illustration of the complete mower and see if it looks exactly like types, square or round tubing etc and then if that checks out scroll and look at the individual parts diagrams and see if you recognize something different, number of bolts used, placement shape whatever and just keep picking through your manuals until you're completely sure that's the one that fits your model and delete the rest of the manuals or change the name of the file that fits your mower so you don't have to go through the whole process again next time you open your downloads and every single one is named dm7 mower users manual .


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