In my opinion you will get a nicer cut with the gage wheels up, but low enough to protect the deck- rather than using it as a floating deck. I guess it also depends what you are looking for and look to correct. To me, it isn't important that the actual height of cut matches the #s on the handle. What kind of QOC issues are you trying to correct? Uneven side to side issues can often be corrected by basic leveling. Ensure the blades are running true, tire pressure even end then level side to side using a small rule or the handy JD leveling gauge. With the blades straight across, measure from the tip below the cutting edge to that nice level concrete garage floor it's parked on. You will see the adjuster from where the deck hangs. make them even as possible w/o sweating to get that last 1/8 of an inch! Front to rear pitch is useful to negate stragglers and overall rough looking cuts. Commonly set lower in the front 1/4 - 3/4 inch. Remember where you started on this one in case you don't like the results from changing it. Good luck!

***"Mounted in plastic"*** Unless Deere has included some sort of "ring terminal" to the mounting, there is no need to separate the PTO switch from the plastic mounting panel. You said that the brake switch had been defeated before you acquired this mower and now the wires are taped to the brake pedal. OK, I don't see anything in the diagram where a defect in the brake switch could cause a problem in the operation of the engine that that occurs ONLY when the PTO switch is turned ON. By this I mean that any problem in the brake switch that could affect how the engine runs..........would affect the engine even without pulling the PTO switch to the ON position, so we can move on from that and go to the PTO switch itself. After studying this diagram at length/depth.......I believe the problem (engine wants to die when PTO switch is turned ON) can only be due to a defective PTO switch. And I think it must be because the PTO switch is bleeding some voltage into the magneto kill circuit which then upsets the normal spark making function of the ignition system. The way I see it, there are 3 ways you can test this: Option A, disconnect the wire pigtail from the PTO clutch and connect 2 independent, temporary wires to the clutch, be sure to maintain the correct polarity, Blue wire is the hot side, Black wire is the ground side. With the temporary wires in place, and the engine running, touch the temporary wire for the hot side of clutch to the "Battery hot" post of the starter solenoid (safer than the battery hot on battery). If the PTO clutch engages without affecting how the engine runs...........defective PTO switch. Option B, Disconnect (or cut) the White wire lead that serves the PTO switch (if you choose to cut, make sure you cut so it can be restored). With this white wire out of the equation, start the engine and turn the PTO switch ON. If the engine runs OK now, replace the defective PTO switch. Option C, Replace the PTO switch and hope for success.

The questions from a previous post are answered - But which is "real"? Does the tractor have a cast-iron steering sector and front axle assembly? My 1996 John Deere GT275 has a Stamped Steel Front Axle Assembly! My 2002 Craftsman DLT2000 has a Cast Iron Front Axle Assembly! Does it have a welded frame made of solid metal, or a stamped sheet metal frame? My 1996 John Deere GT275 has a Stamped Steel Frame with rear Fenders and Dash Assembly Spotwelded to the Frame! My 2002 Craftsman DLT2000 has a Stamped Steel Frame with rear Fenders and Dash Assembly Bolted to the Frame! Does it have a real draw bar or a funky piece of bent metal? Both GT275 and DLT2000 have a piece of bent steel for a Drawbar the Craftsman appeaars to be thicker but I did not use micrometers to check! If its really important I can check and post the results. Does it have the ability to support a sleeve hitch and/or 3 point hitch? Both GT275 and DLT2000 have the ability for a Sleeve Hitch Attachment DOes it have provisions for PTO supported accessories such as a snow blower or tiller? Both GT275 and DLT2000 will support these accessories! How big are the wheels? The GT275 has 23" wheels on rear will have to check front size! The DLT2000 has 20" wheels on rear will have to check front size! If its really important I can check tire sizes on both and post the results. Answers to the above questions will pretty well determine if it is "real" or not. Not sure any modern Cubs qualify, though certainly many of the older ones do. Many JD's qualify as do older "Classic Series" Toro Wheel horse as well as C Series Wheel Horse products. In addition to the above; The John Deere has a combined Choke/Throttle! The Craftsman has a separate Choke and Throttle! The John Deere has idiot lights for battery charging indication! The Craftsman has a ampmeter gauge for battery charging indication! The John Deere does not have any indication of time use! The Craftsman has a hour gauge for indication of time use! Both GT275 and DLT2000 have Electric PTO clutches! Both GT275 and DLT2000 have pedal operated hydrastatic transaxles! The GT275 is Green and Yellow! The DLT200 is Red, Black and Silver! Been working in the sun today, extremely hot out there must have damaged the thought process, its still not clear what the questions and comparisions mean, other than the GT275 is rated as a GT and the DLT2000 is rated as a LT. The morning comes early maybe get to work earlier and quit sooner be in the cooler part of the day. Goodnight and sweet dreams BTW What can I compare my JD 2040 to, I want determine if its real since it has a German name plate? Oh yeh, its really Green and Yellow.

Well guys, We still live in the house we bought to in 2014 in order to move Donna's aging mom who was (at that time) showing symptoms of dementia. The dementia progressively took its toll on her mind, and then in October of 2016, she was diagnosed with stage 4 bladder cancer. She lived until early February 2017 and died here at home with us, as she wished and she had made us promise not to let her die in a hospital or nursing home. She died surrounded by family and a hospice nurse was present. I only relate this story because Donna's mom's health situation was the reason we bought a house big enough for all of us to live in, under one roof.........and the subsequential multiple projects and renovations.........were the reasons I dropped off of the forum. As soon as we moved into the house, I had a long list of things that HAD to be done, and a long list of lesser things we WANTED to do......so my time on the forum just could not be justified.....I simply had too much to do. The first things to be done were to come up with safety measures to help prevent an elderly woman with dementia from injury by being proactive about preventing her from "escaping" the house. I had to equip all exit doors with a deadbolt lock keyed inside and out (all keyed alike) and we had to come up with a nearby "hiding place" close to each lock location for spare keys in case of emergency. This house has a full basement with stairs, and we did not want her mom to have access to the stairs, so I included the same deadbolt on that door too. The sliding door to the second floor deck was a challenge in that it had a key lock on the outside ONLY with just a paddle lock lever on the inside. I had to come up with a way to make that door lockable with a key from the inside. My solution was to remove the lock assembly from the door and "reverse" location of the paddle lever plate and the key tumbler plate, so that the key tumbler would be on the inside. I stripped out the guts relating to the paddle lever and covered the hole where the paddle shaft came through with a small brass plate.....heavily epoxied in place from the backside (inside the door). All you can see from outside is a small hole blanked off with brass. The deck is on the second story on the backside of the house with stairs leading down the the pool, which is enclosed inside a fence, so we never use the sliding door as a "key entry" point anyhow. Then there is the attic storage space epic adventure. The attic space when we bought the house, was almost non-existent. There was a total of 4 sheets of 4' X 8' plywood (128 sq. ft.) on the joists at the top of an extremely rickety pull down wooden stairs. Stairs were the first to go. Replaced with a sturdy aluminum pull down folding stairs. Then I hauled 22 4' X 8' sheets of 3/4 OSB into the attic space.(each sheet was cut in half lengthwise to fit through attic stairs opening). We now have about 800 sq. ft. of usable attic storage space. I built 2 inverted trusses (strong backs) to attach to the joists on the sections spanning the 12' kitchen and the 18' den. These trusses ensure that the load imposed by the extra OSB and stored material are ultimately borne by the load bearing walls at the hallway, den, and both walls of the kitchen. The addition of the trusses assures that the ceiling joists do not assume a sway back shape over time resulting in cracked ceiling gypsum board. I assembled the trusses in the attic and fabricated them to have about 1/2" "preload bow" on the 18' truss and 3/8" preload bow on the 12' truss. This was to ensure that the trusses were actually carrying some load right from the start. After I got the trusses built and fastened onto each joist they served with metal strapping, I built a 30' long, 2 tier shelf system into the truss structures. Shelves are 24" wide and the bottom shelf is 20" off the floor, while the second shelf is 46" off the floor, so you have the attic floor under the shelves, and the 2 shelves themselves for storage, That yields 180 sq. ft. of space, plus the remaining 720 or so sq. ft. of attic at various head space. The tallest overhead clearance is about 6'2" at the rafter collar ties (and I added collar ties so that every rafter has a tie, instead of every third rafter as the house was built). There were 4 rafters that had "split" open due to improper orientation by the rough carpenters. They had placed rafters with knots situated on the lower chord of the rafter (tension side), which is a no-no. These rafters had to be jacked back into place and reinforcement panels of 3/4" plywood "scabbed" onto each side, glued and screwed. The original scheme had the ventilation exhaust fans from both bathrooms simply dumping into the attic space, another no-no. I extended the exhaust hoses over to the gable area of the house and busted through the brick and installed 2 bona fide exhaust hoods with insect screens. On the longest hose, which was a 4" hose....I built a booster fan box in the middle of that run and wired it so that it turns on when the original fan turns on. I felt that a 16' run of 4" hose would probably need all the fan power it could get to keep from simply "stalling out". The other hose was 6" and only 8' long, so I felt it was adequate with no additional help needed. I could go on and on about other projects, but these were some of my most major undertakings, Now, about my employment. I no longer work as a forklift mechanic in the shop. In midsummer 2015, I took over running the parts department when our longstanding partsman retired. This was challenging in that it put me to the task of acquiring and dispensing the parts instead of installing them on vehicles. It has also been challenging in that I was the first partsman in our history to actually have the capability of searching the Volvo and Daimler websites to look up parts. It was in the summer of 2015 that the company finally got onboard with software to enable this. Prior to that advent, our method of ordering parts involve looking the parts up in hard copy paper parts manuals, or talking to a vendor/dealer on the phone and trying to describe what you wanted, it was sometimes a crap shoot whether you would get the right parts or not. The outgoing partsman never had to use the computer to look up and order parts, and when it was introduced, he refused to do it saying that his time was too short to need it, so he told me to get all the training and he would just watch. LOL He and I worked side by side for 3 months while he showed me most of the ropes before he retired in October 2015. That is a summary of what I have been up to. I know this was completely off topic, but since the request was posed here, I felt OK in responding here.