Self propelled lawn mower

An improved mower deck for attachment to a tractor comprising a central deck, at least one wing deck hingedly attached to the central deck, a plurality of vertically mounted blade spindles in the mower deck each rotatably supporting a cutting blade, at least one of said spindles being in the wing deck,

• means engaging the spindles to rotatably drive the spindles, said drive means including a pulley mounted on the wing deck spindle and a drive belt engaging the pulley,
• means to simultaneously disengage the wing deck drive belt and brake the wing deck spindle to a stop upon sufficient upward movement of the wing deck about the hinged attachment,
• said disengagement and brake means comprising a bar pivotally attached to the wing deck, an idler pulley rotatably mounted on the bar, means attached to the bar movably urging the idler pulley into engagement with the wing deck drive belt, brake means on the bar engageable with the wing deck spindle pulley upon sufficient upward movement of the wing deck about the hinged attachment, the engagement of the brake serving to limit the further movement of the idler pulley and thereby releasing the tension on the wing deck drive belt.

An improved front mounted mower deck for attachment to a tractor comprising a supporting deck, a plurality of vertically mounted blade spindles in the mower deck each rotatably supporting a cutting blade, pulleys mounted on the spindles and a single main drive belt engaging at least two of the pulleys on adjacent spindles so as to rotate the spindles in opposite directions, a vacuum fan chamber and fan therein mounted in the supporting deck at approximately the center thereof and at least partially behind a line joining the two adjacent counterrotating spindles, said vacuum fan chamber thereby located approximately between and partially behind the cutting blades on the two adjacent spindles and within the area enclosed by the main drive belt.

An improved mower deck for attachment to a tractor comprising a central deck, at least one wing deck attached to the central deck, a plurality of vertically mounted blade spindles in the mower deck each rotatably supporting a cutting blade, at least one of said spindles being in the wing deck,

• a single hinge attaching the wing deck to the central deck at an elevation substantially below the elevation of the mower deck, said hinge extending substantially from the front to the back of the central deck and located above the plane of the cutting blade, and,
• said central deck and said wing deck each including a downwardly sloping solid deck panel extending substantially from the front to the back of the central deck and attaching the single hinge to the respective decks.