MTD Genuine Lawn Mower Spindle Assembly for Many MTD Riders and RZTs with 46 in. Decks

Pricing was very good compared to competitors.

I suspected that MTD, the mother ship for many popular brands of landscaping equipment (look it up), would simplify their supply chain by adapting parts like this spindle to a line of similar products. I was right. Once I had determined the numerical part number, I searched and found it on dozens of competing suppliers sites. Tractor Supply beat them all on price. Naturally, you need to match the part number exactly and take all letters, suffixes and dash numbers into consideration. Another bonus is that you can avoid shipping costs by their "ship to store" option. You'll find that the mounting holes have no threads, but this is intentional. If you're not familiar with self-tapping Tri-Lobular screws, take a close look at the screws as you remove them. Used for self-tapping in soft materials like aluminum, they speed up the manufacturing process. However, a triangular bolt in a round hole is prone to water intrusion and bi-metal corrosion. Penetrating fluid and 3-4 days of patience still left me with three broken bolts... So, I chose to tap the new spindles for 5/16-18 standard hex threads and use standard bolts for my rebuild.