I'm in the process of rebuilding the cutter bar assembly because the cutting action was poor (clumping and uncut grass). I'm attributing it to poor clearance between the cutters and ledgers. From the manual sheets available here: Cutter bar and outer shoe assembly page 10. My question is in regards to the inner knife clip (18) and the inner knife shims (21). It looks like there's another component in the diagram that isn't labeled. Is it another spacer plate similar to (5)? The quantity for (5) is only showing 2 though. I'm not interested in your opinion about types of cutters, or type of forage. Just a specific answer about the components. Please. Thank you!

Email sent.

Hi Mario. You may want to re-post your question in our N Board forum - it gets a lot more visitor traffic. I'm sure that we have some folks who visit here who have owned the 501 mower - it's fairly popular.

Good luck with it.........Ed

Hello Ed,

Done. Thanks for the heads up.

Just to follow up my own post in case someday someone needs the information: My sickle had thick wear plates and shims (figure number 21, not 20)under each one raising the blade sections off the ledgers way too much. I purchased all new wear plates and found them to be thinner. I was thinking that I would have a metal fabrication shop custom cut me some shims (20) from 18 gauge metal, but it didn't need any shims. Perhaps the primer I applied to all the bare metal surfaces played a role in that. Maybe it will require shims after a few hours of cutting. For the components (2, 3, & 18) I custom cut my old wear plates, and added a couple shims (21) to create the clearance. I rapped on a few of the rock guards to get them parallel to the blade sections, but my one new rock guard and another were difficult. I'll go back to those two prior to painting, and examine what the issue is. Currently, I'm fabricating a new outer shoe and modifying the rear of the inner shoe to provide a taller cut with 1/2" increments. The gist of it is, do whatever it takes to get the blade section clearance correct in a professional manner. It helps to use components that are original or close to original and all consistent.

The shims not only space the shearing action but push on the bar below the blades forward.
I am restoring a Dearborn 14-16 which require a 1/16' shim and the PO replaced them with Ford 1/8" shim. Thus resulting in a poor shearing action. I had a 14-16 junkier and used the shims off them. Guess Ford has different width shims.