This short piece is not so much a
how to do or fix, as it is a what to also do intellectually, when you
have to tackle a problem with a riding mower problem.
It's an autumn day and I was making the
last cut of grass for the season. Lots of leaves on the ground with
some piled over by a small raised garden. After cutting close to an
acre of grass, I make the last minute decision to plow through and
much a small pile of leaves next to the bed. Unknown to me, there was
a rather large rock smack dab in the middle of the pile. As I drove
into it, both blades on the 42 inch deck engaged, and then stuck
momentarily... just long enough to strip off the locking teeth of
both mandrels. Bummer. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. On
that day, I quickly disengaged the blades and drove the mower into
the garage, thinking I'd address the problem (whatever it was) next
spring. I thought that at worst, I'd bent a blade and it'd be no big
deal. Such nativity and innocence...
Fast forward to the next spring. It's
late March in SW Missouri! The grass is now growing like crazy and I
looked with increasing anxiety at my so not working mower. A call to
a man who had cut my grass from time to time bought me some time...
at $40 a cut. The thing was, grass has a tendency to grow rather fast
in the spring and in short order, I found myself $120 down in less
than a month. I resolved to fix that mower and to do it tout suite!
The first major problems arose after I
had detached the mower deck and it was lying on the garage floor. I
has ascertained, at that time, that upon hitting that rock one
mandrel was going to need replacement. In order to accomplish that, I
would have to be removed. This involved the removal of three small
bolts that held it to the deck and a large 7/8 inch bolt that affixed
the top pulley. The small bolts were not much of a problem, but that
large one was something made in hell. No amount of pressure I could
bring to bear moved it even a smidgen. I had no idea what to do after
even heating it with a propane torch proved fruitless. Finally, after
a week worth of failure, I decided to visit a local mower repair home
operation to see if they would tackle the jog. Alas, we I stopped in,
no one was there. Also, calls the service were not returned. I left
and headed back down the road. But, as I was driving I saw a small
building that advertised Welding and Fencing. Hmm, I thought, and
pulled on in. Inside were a couple of young men manhandling large
sections of steel pipe. One of them , the owner, told me he was going
to be headed my way the next day and would stop by. I gave him my
business card and left wondering if he had actually meant what he
said....
The next day, sure enough he called and
arrived at about 11AM. Out from his truck came an acetylene torch
and a small portable impact wrench. Inside of ten minutes both those
top nuts were off. And, it turned out that the one I has having a
problem with had been cross threaded! Well, that only goes to show
that sometimes, you have to think a little outside the box to get a
problem resolved. And like the welder told me, 'it amazing what a little heat can do!'
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