Working on BCS 725 Sickle-Bar Mower

Picked up the new teeth for the BCS 725 two-wheel tractor's sickle bar mower attachment this morning and immediately got to work.  I took off the bolts on the clamp-downs that hold the teeth in place and some other bolts and removed the old teeth.  Here's a comparison photo of the old (10 out of 15 teeth broken off and all of the remaining with the cutting edges broken off) with the new:

The new teeth look mighty good.  I expect they will be more than a match for even the tallest weeds we run across on the Capital Metro ROW.

Next I decided to wirewheel the clamp-downs.  Then I took off the height adjusters and wirewheeled them.  After that I began priming and painting (gloss black) those parts.  While waiting for the sides to dry, I cleaned up some 18 bolts with a wirewheel, after soaking them in degreaser to get the grease off.  Finally, I wirewheeled the sickle bar platform that the teeth are mounted on.  Tomorrow I will tape the items I don't want to spray paint and then prime and paint that part as well.  Then I will reinstall all of the various items I had taken off.

Here's some photos of the BCS 725 before beginning this process:

This afternoon I received in the mail the shims and gaskets for the mower deck gearboxes that I have to either repair or check to be sure they don't blow a leak like the 1455 deck gearbox did.  Will call up my small-engine guy tomorrow to see if he can come over before Saturday so we can at least look at the rail-mower gearbox before Frank Glatzl arrives to work on it with me then.