Monday, July 17, 2017

Living with a 52 year old lawnmower


Its not hyperbole to say we have a 52 year old lawnmower, in fact in this first picture both of the lawnmowers are 52 years old. Thats right they were each made in 1965.


I was mowing the lawn yesterday thinking that this is probably the only lawnmower I'll ever need. Unless we get a much larger lawn I don't see why I should ever buy another lawnmower. Yesterday I mowed our lawn and half of Bill's in less than an hour using less than one tank of gas. Considering the gas tank holds less than half a gallon thats quite economical.

I've been using this mower since 2009 with relatively little drama until a couple months ago. Angie had cut the whole lawn and parked the machine when she commented that it didn't seem to have any power. I fired it up, engaged the blades and it made a gawdawful racket. I pulled off the pulley cover:



Doesn't look too exciting right? Look closely at the pulley, right under the nut, see the silver ring?


The pulley was made in two pieces and the key'd part sheered off.


Nothing a couple minutes with the welder couldn't solve.

I've mowed the lawn twice since that happened, I was a little worried I'd need to balance the pulley but I think since the repair is so close to the center it doesn't matter.

I'm thinking I probably need to replace the spark plug and airfilter, it took 3 pulls to start yesterday, which I guess is something most people would be happy with. I do need to replace the fuel shutoff valve, its gotten loose and yesterday once while I was mowing it fell into the off position and killed the engine. No big whoop but as its not right I'd like to remedy it.

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