Poulan 576682701 Mulch Kit with Blades Black 42 Inches

This mulch kit works great and is very easy to install. I bought this kit and installed it on my 42" Poulan Pro riding mower and have been using it for 4 months. The very first thing I did before installing the blades is take them to the local hardware store and spend 15 bucks to make sure they were nice and sharp and balanced. Next make sure the mower is off, take out the key, disconnect battery, disengage the blade clutch, ect, ect to ensure the will be no chance of the mower starting up while removing and installing the blades. I then jacked up the front of my mower, put one some leather gloves, easily removed the spindle nut on each blade, swapped in the new mulch blades, reattached the spindle nuts and torqued them to spec. Installing the mulching cover on the mower deck is pretty straight forward with the included instructions. The instructions specify to install the cover under the existing side shoot, but I went ahead and remove the side shoot as it was always in the way when driving through my gate and mowing around objects. It took no more than 20 minutes to swap the blades and install the cover. Best of all I don't have worry about grass clippings shooting all over the place now when I mow!

This kit fit my 42-in Poulon deck perfectly. I wanted this to be mounted permanently so I removed the stock side shoot and added a couple sheet metal screws to the cover to lock it to the deck more securely than the bungees. The special mulch blades stir up a lot of action under the deck and leave a nice cut of finely mulched grass that is barely noticeable after mowing. Other reviewers have complained about the blades being dull but they were not. They were simply covered with some heavy paint that I easily scraped off with the side of a putty knife. The blades were sharp enough underneath the paint to go right to use. My shed entrance is a little narrow and the yard has some obstructions like swing sets and small trees so it is nice not to have to fight with a side shoot. The mulcher doesn't seem to care which direction I'm cutting so I don't have to follow a special path through the yard like I did before. I'm very happy with this mulching kit.

I have a push lawn mower that was setup to mulch right from the store. I've never even put on the side shoot since mulching removes the need for yard cleanup (raking). I recently bought a new Poulan Pro riding mower but it was not setup for mulching. That's the reason I bought this kit. It was easy to install (Note: I've installed blades before). The installation instructions are clear to read, include pictures, are accurate and even include mowing tips. They also come in English, French and Spanish. The instructions specify how to replace the blades on a standard setup (Center Bolt) or if you have an EZ Blade Attachment System (Quick Release). It fits my Poulan Pro 42" model: 960460077. My model number was not listed on the box but it fit perfectly. Supposedly there's more models in a "Look-Up" guide in stores.Blades:You get two 21 inch blades in the kit which equal 42 inches total. They were exactly the same length of my OEM blades. The blades are of a good quality and match or exceed other aftermarket blades out there. The instructions nor the box state anywhere that the blades need to be sharpened, but they do seem dull to the touch. I have been told in the past that the paint that coats the blade to prevent corrosion covers the blade edge giving the illusion that it's dull. The paint then rubs off when mowing exposing the sharp edge. I have not found this to be true. I took them to my local hardware store to be sharpened and balanced and now they are sharp to the touch. I recommend everyone gets the blades sharpen before you install them.Mulch Cover:The mulch cover is plastic and is of the same quality and density of the OEM Poulan Pro side shoot. It attaches to the mower deck at the top via a metal tab underneath the side shoot and to the sides via rubber bungees. It fits the contours of my mower deck precisely and installation was easy. The only issue I had was if I started with the mulch cover in place I could not get the left bungee to stretch far enough to reach the mower deck mounting plate. When I attached the left side bungee first then stretched the mulch cover into place it installed with ease.Normally with a side shoot on the right you can only trim around things like landscaping from the left side of the mower deck. I went one step further and removed my side shoot. You have to disassemble the spring mechanism though. If you remove the entire assembly you will lose the metal tab at the top that secures the mulch cover. If you leave the side shoot on it just hides the mulch cover when it's down making it look like no changes were made. It does not interfere with the mulch cover at all.Update: 5/9/2016Mulching:No matter how fast or slow my mower is traveling, rows of cut grass deposit on the lawn leaving stripes I have to go over a second time. I believe this is due to clippings getting caught up somewhere under the deck causing the clippings to not distribute evenly. Also, the top of the deck collects a ton of clippings when mowing. This is the reason I dropped the review from 5 to 4 stars.

Poulan Pro OEM42MK Mulch Kit with Blades, Fits All Poulan Pro 42-inch Riding Lawn MowersMy neighbor's dog is a thief. Almost every day, he steals something from my yard - a bucket, a tool, a tarp, a tomato plant, even a trash barrel. The other day, he took off with my cordless reciprocating saw when I set it down for a moment. I usually find the missing items in my neighbor's yard, but one item that has remained missing is the mulching cover that I got when I purchased my lawn tractor. Don't know if the dog buried it or ate it, but it's nowhere to be found. I decided to replace it with this mulching kit with a newer version of the cover. The mulching cover fits my 42" Husqvarna deck (YTH1542XPT) perfectly and easily attaches in seconds. The old cover was so difficult to attach that I usually wrestled with it for 10 or 15 minutes before I got it attached correctly or simply gave up. This newer kit is 5 bucks more than the old version, but well worth it. Don't buy the old kit unless you are a masochist. I haven't put the blades on yet, but they look like a good design. I will update after I have used them for a while. I think that damn dog actually did me a favor, but he has motivated me to fix the gap in the fence. I don't want him to get away with the new cover.

I have a poulan 42", and it worked perfectly with my machine. Quite easy to put on actually. Coming from a 50 year old woman with MS, that's something! Took me about 15 minutes to install, with no mishaps. Update: while the fit worked out well, the actual performance of this kit seems to be lacking. It leaves large chunks of leaves behind. I needed the blades to truly mulch for the fall cleanup season. As it stands, I'm going to have to buy a separate mulcher for that job. It does seem to do ok with regular lawn mulching though.

I think it would be great except I can't install it without the proper weld nut (the smaller of the two in the pic). I will also mention that the product picture is for the older 42" decks kit 954040501 which is highly misleading. What they send is Husqvarna kit 576682701 which is for newer mower decks. Calling Poulan/Husqvarna is a waste of time as they send me to Amazon and Amazon shunted me around then hung up on me.

Good value and OEM for later models.

Les lames sont telles que montrées mais le capot reçu est loin d’être celui sur la photo qui baisse vers l’arrière tout comme mon original, tandis que celui reçu est presque constant en hauteur. C’est très décevant.

Very unhappy the piece was not at all like the picture.