1 day, 3 lawnmower breakdowns, and a bonus breakdown

Buckle in folks, this is a long one...

 It wasn't so long ago I made a post on Reddit about my old Snapper lawnmower

I bragged a little bit about the buy it for life (bifl) mentality of the machine and how it's been faithfully mowing my grass since 2010. Interestingly I posted about it waaay back when I first got the machine but apparently never updated for when I got it running. I wonder if I used it in 2009? I don't remember.

Anyway, yesterday I went to mow the lawn after being away for 2 weeks. Mower fired right up, I made one half loop of the tiny front yard and the blade got loose on the spindle.

This picture is actually not from yesterday but from a month ago, I've been fighting this problem for awhile now. The blade is held on by a nut that is stepped which centers the blade and holds it on.

What has happened is that the blade got loose in the past and the step has gotten enlarged so it doesn't hold the blade. The fix is to carefully grind the step back so the nut can grab the blade again. Actually a better fix would be to make a spacer with a step out of some hardened metal that the nut can push against the blade. Yesterday I used the quick fix and ground a little more off the nut, back to work.

Made another half loop around the yard, heard a "thunk" and lost propulsion. This is another long term problem, the drive system on this machine is super simple, theres a flat plate on the end of the driveshaft, under the engine. The "transmission" such as it is, has a rubber drive wheel that runs perpendicular to the plate. Push the drive wheel into the plate and you go. Adjust where the drive wheel is on the plate and you go faster, slower or backwards. Simple system, easy to use, easy to work on.

The drive wheel is a wear item and regularly needs replacing as the rubber wears, apparently one time I didn't get the bolts tight enough and I managed to strip the holes. I'd put them back with locktite but apparently that wasn't good enough.

I decided I would make this a forever fix, tap the holes to the next size up (3/8 up from 5/16) and put nuts on the end of the bolts. I scrounged around and found appropriate nuts, bolts, washers and lock washers and got it all bolted up and locktited as you see above.

Problem: the nut on the end of the bolt needs to occupy the same space as the brake shoe...

Rats.

I experimented with custom thin nuts but it's no soap, there just isn't space, so in this shot you see the final, the nuts cut off flush. I was just thinking I ought to go back and peen the bolts so they can't back out but then I remembered that drive wheel is still a wear component and will need replacing, in fact it ought to be replaced next year. When I order a new drive wheel I'll also order a new nut for the blade spindle.

So back to mowing, this time I managed to get the whole front yard mowed when one of the front tires went flat. Fortunately I noticed it pretty much right away. In the past I've failed to notice problems like this and run the tire off the rim, these little tires can be a lot of work to put back on the rim...

Of course the tire had come off the bead so here I'm using a strap and screwdriver to force it back onto the bead. Once back on the bead I could get air into it but I could also hear it coming back out.

That's the upholstery tack I found in the tire. Well what to do now? It was after 2pm so our local hardware store was closed and I don't have a tire patch kit, or if I do I don't know where it is. I poked around a minute and managed to find a can of fix-a-flat. Does that stuff work? Well this time it sure did, I put way too much into the tire, rotated it so the hole was pointed down and put some air to it. Sure enough the leak stopped and I FINALLY mowed the lawn.

Interestingly the rest of the lawn was mowed without event, no issues at all.

Bonus: While messing with the tire my air hose developed a leak. The leak is right at the end, the part that gets handled/bent around the most. This is a Harbor Freight air hose that came on a retracting reel, it was cheap and I've had it 4 or 5 years. Recently I had noticed some weather checking on the line so I knew something like this was coming.

For now I've wrapped it in electrical tape. Does that stop the leak? Nope but it slows it down a little and makes me feel a little better about it. Short term I'll probably cut a couple feet off the line but that's just a temporary fix while I get a new hose...

Oil changing fool

Spring is in the air and those spring showers keep coming. Actually it rains every week, its rained every week since June 2018 and I'm a bit tired of rain. I spent 2 weeks in California recently and it was nice to be able to go a whole week without it raining. It did rain one day but one day in 11 is better than 6 out of 7 we've been having recently.

Anyway it turns out that our whole fleet needs oil changes at the same time. I started last weekend by putting away the snowblower, that gets 5/8 quart of 5w40, I had been using Mobil 1 but since the '98 Jetta is gone I don't need to carry that oil anymore. The Golf gets Lubro Moly which is way overkill, heck the Mobil 1 is probably overkill but its what I've got around and its only 5/8 quart a year.
Next was the lawnmower, my 1965 Snapper Comet 30.

Thats an old picture but it hasn't changed much. I've been using Mobil 1 15w50 in that only because I had a gallon jug of the stuff left over from the '78 240D. When that jug is used up (probably next year) it'll go on a diet of 5w40, again it got 5/8 quart. After changing the oil I challenged my neighbor Bill and his son Jeremy to guess how many pulls it would take to start the old girl. I guessed 3, Bill said 2 and Jeremy said 6(!). It started on the first pull but I couldn't get the choke off fast enough to keep it running, I turned off the choke and it ran good on the second pull.

After I mowed the lawn I turned my attention to the 2010 Dodge Ram. That gets Mobil 1 5w20, the thinnest of the fleet. It got an STP Extended use oil filter because Autozone had a sale for that and the oil together. It takes all of the 5 quarts that come in a jug. I'm continually amazed that the thin oil is enough but I trust the Chrysler engineers, its made it 135,000+ miles so far with no real issues, certainly none related to lubrication.

I didn't have supplies for the Volkswagens and the day was getting long anyhow so I cleaned up for the week.

Today, a week later I started with my Jetta, this is its first change with us and as its at 60,000 miles I bought a 40,000 mile service kit from ID parts. I figured I'd feel silly if the air filters had already been done but I'd rather have them and not need them than the other way around.

One thing I don't like about VWs, the 2015 in particular is that you HAVE to jack it up to change the oil. The 2005 Golf you could potentially do without jacking with a vacuum oil sucker, but on the 2015 the oil filter is underneath so theres no way to change it without jacking it up.
The Jetta gets VW spec 507 oil which is pretty uncommon, I don't think FLAPS (Friendly local auto parts store) carries it although I bet my local Federated Autoparts would get it if I asked. I got Lubro Moly 5w30 (the only weight that meets 507) from IDParts. My research online suggested it'd take 4.5 liters, my car seemed thirsty, it needed the whole 5 liter jug, the IDParts kit included 6 liters so I've got a spare, in the last 10,000 miles the car hasn't needed a drop.

Since I had it I decided to do the air filter and the cabin filter, both are easy, the cabin filter is very easy.

In both pictures new is on the right, both clearly needed changing. When I pulled out the cabin filter a bunch of leaves and pine needles came out too, I'm glad I did it.

One hitch in this job, after I was done and everything was buttoned up and I was moving the car so I could work on the Golf, the check engine light came on. Rats, its never good to have done a service and have the car worse than you started with. I had an idea what was wrong so I jacked it back up and pulled the underbelly panel back off.

This guy is an auxiliary water pump, notice the little electrical connection, that has to move so you can get the oil filter out and I'd completely forgotten to plug it back in when I was done. Hopefully that'll teach me. To reset the check engine light I had to pull out my wifi OBDII dongle, my VCDS cable won't work with this car, and fire up the Torque app. I needed to remember that for the dongle to work you need to acknowledge that there is no internet access, so frustrating...

After my experience with the Jetta changing the oil in the Golf was really easy and quick, the biggest challenge on that car is the metal skid plate. I noticed its dinged up pretty good, I'm thinking I should probably grab one for the Jetta too, both cars are pretty low...

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.

Passive agressive lawncare

Our neighbor Bill's yard basically surrounds ours on two sides like an L. He's a terrific neighbor but this year he's been really outdoing me in the lawn mowing department. A lot of it is timing, remember that trip to Asia which actually came right on the heels of a week in Burbank. Also Angie has had terrible trouble with our lawnmowers. Twice now I've been on trips and she's been unable to start the Snapper and once she ran the Cub Cadet out of gas and was unable to get it to re-start once it was refueled.

So I was delighted yesterday to mow our lawn BEFORE Bill got a chance to mow his. I'd been debating if it needed mowing for a couple days, in the depths of summer like this it requires mowing less often.

Clearly it needed it, I was taking off almost 4 inches.

The tool for the job was my 1965 Snapper 308X, I looked back in the blog and realized I'd hauled it home back in 2008 which I think means I got it running in 2009. Its still got one original '60s vintage tire, the engine is from an '88 model, I replaced the belt, drive wheel and blade when I first started using it back in '09 and in fact the blade and drive wheel are probably due for replacement again, reverse is a little iffy. Otherwise this thing has been OUTSTANDING. I've done very little to it for 6 years of regular use. For me it always starts on the first or second pull of the rope and cuts all the grass on our quarter acre on less than a quart of gas. Once in awhile it throws the belt but thats really the worst that happens other than the time the last original front tire came apart while I was mowing. I finished mowing the lawn rolling on the tube which didn't steer very well...

The boys of summer

Spring is here and Sunday I spent some time puttering around the yard. Put down 6 cubic feet of mulch, put some composted cow manure on the asparagus bed, Angie raked the yard...
While all that was underway I had the oil draining out of the snowblower, got that changed and realized I hadn't changed the oil in the Cub Cadet last year since the plow has to be pulled to do it. So I got the plow off and the oil changed, it sure cranks better with 5w40 instead of the 15w50 I'd had in it previously. I'd gone with the heavier oil since it burns some, we'll see how it does with the lighter oil.

I pushed the snowblower back into the garage and brought out the Snapper. I'd changed the oil in that when I put it away last fall so its mostly ready to go although I want to replace the rubber wheel on the drive. It doesn't do reverse real well right now. The wheel thats on it is one I put on when I brought it back into service. I think that was 2009 but I can't find any record of it in my notes. 6 years would be a pretty good run anyway I'd think, its a cheap part too.

My plan is to drag the Cub Cadet to camp with us in May and drag the Cub Cadet thats there back here. I've got a mowing deck for the one at camp thats never been installed. We don't use that Cub Cadet the amount I'd expected we would, we just don't have that much towing work, so it'd be nice to have it as an additional mower. There are many times when we could get a lot more work done if we could mow with two machines at the same time. So thinking about that I decided it'd make more since to put the mower on my Cub Cadet so it can be a mower when we get it up there.

This is what they call a "timed deck" where the sweep of the two blades overlap so they use a toothed belt to keep from hitting each other. Its a nice finish mower but not the kind of bushhog mower we normally use at camp. It'll be interesting to see how it holds up. I don't think we'll use it all that much since it starts so hard. Lately if I don't run it every day it needs a little shot of carb cleaner to get going. My long term plan, as I've said before, with this machine is to transplant a diesel engine into it. Sadly the $600 diesel engines of 2 years ago are gone, these days a 10hp diesel runs $750-$800, a 13hp goes for $900 which is a temptation. The 10hp rating is really a "burst" rating, the engine isn't rated to run at that speed (3550 rpm) long term. Its rated speed is more like 2500 rpm where it makes more like 8hp. The good news is that it makes max torque at more like 1500 rpm. The chart is hard to read but it looks like 18 lb ft at 1500 rpm. An online calculator tells me that the K161 with 7hp at 3600rpm is 10 lbft so it sounds to me like the 10hp diesel will be a nearly 50% increase in usable power...

Oil change day!

Just a quick one for your Cyber-Monday.
Decided it was time enough to change the oil in the '84 190D. It'd been either 10,000 or 20,000 miles, I don't recall and I can't find the slip I wrote, or should have written. So I took it for a quick spin to warm and shake things up, then hooked my topsider up and sucked the oil out. It looked like MB diesel oil always does, black and nasty. Something is wrong with my topsider I had to pump it a million times to get all the oil out. Thats no real surprise though, its always been like that ;)

With new oil and a new filter in the 190D I figured I ought to get the lawnmower changed out too so I fired it up, or at least I TRIED to fire it up, it was all fire and no up. A shot of starting fluid go it to go but it quit right away. I finally realized it had no gas...

Whoops, a quick splash of gas and I took it for a spin around the yard to warm up, a quick drain and fill later and its to bed for the winter. I still need to move it back to its wintertime sleepy spot but the garage is FULL of recycling and garbage. I meant to go to the transfer station well before now I really did but I just haven't had time. Hopefully Thursday I'll get a chance since the weekend looks absurdly busy.

Something different

Heres something else I've been working on. Its a 1965 Snapper Comet 30. As near as I can tell it has a '67 8hp Briggs. The story goes that my great Uncle Paris bought this after it had been used on the Fort Fairfield, Maine golf course for a couple years. Apparently the golf course was hard on it and it had to be re-powered hence the '67 motor. It got used on the farm until about 1990 or so when Reg bought a front engine White mower that we've still got. Of the two the Snapper looks better...

The Snapper then sat under a tree until last fall (2007) when I hauled it to my house.
Anyway its now in my garage, the motor is off but I'm having a terrible time trying to get the pully off it. I've tried drilling but the screws must be made out of magic because no drill I try will cut them. I'd like to repower this with a brand new motor at which point (well, with new tires) it should be pretty much good to go. The next step would be a cosmetic upgrade but it'd be cool to cut the grass with this old mower...

If you've got a pulley for an old Snapper I'd love to hear from you.