Swapped the deck drive motor from the spare identical mower I brought home last weekend. Mowed no issues. Yay!
Same blade speed I had before and lots of windrowing still there. Meh!
The spare mower came with a super fancy articulating deck. It's a bit incomplete but I'm going to try and use it. Seems to be in reasonable shape. Should give a much better cut, following terrain which is a bit of an issue with some spots with the 72" deck, and more importantly should bounce a lot less too the way the casters and rollers are set up. Looking forward to that. Bearings all good, needed all rollers and casters and belts. I have new rollers on the way and should be able to move casters and blades to it from other things here. Belts might be OK for a test run, TBD.
Now that grass is mowed, going to swap starter onto the new to me mower and see if it'll start. It cranked once or twice and then wouldn't, but compression got better while cranking... I have my doubts. I should have beat him up a little harder on the price but I think it'll be OK. Need to get the other one I brought home brought in to start parting out too. Greens reel mower that didn't work out for the previous owner, and he harvested the Kubota out of it. Didn't want to part it for some reason and sold the whole machine for the price of the hydraulic pump.