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...

We built a gym!

 COVID has been hard on everything and especially places like gyms. I started going to the gym in January 2020. You know what happened next, they closed down in March, reopened in July and closed for real at the end of June.

With the closing one of our friends stepped up, he's got some commercial property that wasn't being used so he bought some of the equipment from the old gym and converted that space to use it in.

First we had to take down a wall.

A sledge hammer and a lot of trash bags...

Hauling out of the old place. This isn't all of the equipment, we filled my pickup and the one towing the trailer too.

The new place is a second floor walk up, it was all hands on deck, well 7 of us anyway, to move in. I don't have any pictures, it was a pretty rapid process.

Getting set up. The hardwood floor is covered with a sheet of plastic to protect it, then a layer of interlocking mats. This has made for an excellent surface to exercise on. Notice also the fans and new lights. There are actually 3 fans, they move a lot of air. Not pictured is the tiny little air conditioner which isn't really up to the task. We need to tint the west facing windows, solar gain on a black floor is substantial.

The weight rack, more recently this got cut back to just one side and slid to the left side of the door. We didn't really need the whole rack as we didn't get all the weights. The room is really just a little too narrow for where it was sitting, I think it works a whole lot better in it's new space.

So now Angie and I are on the "board of trustees" for "an elite fitness club". It's a private club and the only way to join is to know somebody who is already in. We're limited for the number of members because of space restrictions capping class size. For now there are only 6 classes a week which may expand in the future.

We do circuit training, the instructors set up 12 stations, each with one exercise and the students cycle through the 12 stations doing each one for 45 seconds. I know 45 seconds doesn't seem like a lot but if you've ever done burpees you should know better. We go through the set of 12 three times, it takes just a bit over an hour when you add in warm up and cool down.

The students range in age from early 20s through mid '60s, maybe into the 70's in the fall if some of the oldest students come back. Mostly I'd say mid thirties and mid forties.

So what will the future hold? I dunno, but at least for the short term it's nice to have a place to workout. I know that personally having a place to go and going to classes with other people makes me much more likely to attend. I also know that I'm a lot stronger than I was before I started going a year and a half ago so I hope we continue like this into the future.

That pressure sprayer

 I mentioned dad's pressure sprayer the other day. It's for an upcoming project I haven't told you about yet. I've been holding back because it's moving slowly but I'll have something soon.

Anyway lets talk a little more about that sprayer, it's been a bit of an adventure.

It's a Troy-Bilt 2700psi sprayer, kind of low end, they make these up to nearly 4000psi. This one is actually made, as far as I can tell, by Briggs and Stratton who also make the engine.

Dad bought it from a friend of his about 3 years ago. What he didn't tell me is that his friend hadn't run it in at least 5 years. Oh and it was stored with gas in it. The gas smelled BAD.

I'm not good at remembering to take pictures, this one was so I could remember how to put the linkages back in place on the carburetor. This carb has an "automatic choke" thats the rod running across the front of the engine, to the upper left in the picture. Over by the engine theres a thermostat that must move when the exhaust gets hot and opens the choke.

I wish I had taken a picture of the inside of the carb, the needle was stuck hard into the seat and there was some kind of goo in the gas intake so it wouldn't flow fuel. This picture was taken after the 3rd or 4th time I went into the carb. If you look carefully to the right of the carb you can see that I installed a fuel shut off. Ideally if we remember to shut off the gas after every use we can save a world of hurt in the future.

The biggest problem in working on a gas powered sprayer is that you have to have water running into the pump whenever the engine is running or you'll burn the pump out. The problem there is that the pump is constantly trying to build pressure, especially on a machine that hasn't run for 8 years and has a stuck bypass valve. I eventually dismounted the pump to make working on the thing easier.

The pump mounts up under the engine, the bolts that secure it actually secure the engine also so dismounting it means you need spacers to hold the engine, otherwise the bolts are too long. I used some big sockets for the job.

I did finally get it running when I realized that it won't start unless there is at least a half tank of gas...

This is the quick connect for the spray nozzles, it lives on the end of the spray gun. It's really just an air chuck. Deep inside, where you can't see, is a 9mm ID o-ring. Remember that, it's 9mm. I couldn't find that published anywhere. The o-ring on this one fell out at some point and the water would spray out everywhere until I replaced it.

I've always hated garden hoses, the connections are always leaking. The manual for the sprayer says "Apply silicone grease to connections". I got to thinking and remembered I had a tube of Sil-Glyde, for lubricating the pins on brake calipers. A little dab on each of the connections and suddenly I had a garden hose that didn't leak. You can see the red garden hose washer in the picture. It's nothing special, I got it at the hardware store and it leaked like crazy until I put Sil-Glyde on it.

The other thing in the picture is the inlet screen. I wish I'd taken a picture of the old one before I threw it away but it was NASTY and the screen was all broken. Replacements were less than $5 for 2 at the hardware store.

They sell an o-ring and screen kit for these but my Harbor Freight o-ring kid had all the o-rings I needed and the screens were cheap. For less than they want for the kit I have enough screens for 2 machines and enough o-rings for probably 10 or 15 of them...

I'm bi-tractoral!

 For years dad and I have talked about buying a compact diesel tractor with a loader. Neither of us is getting any younger and a mechanical "pick things up" machine would be super handy. At the beginning of the year I sold some stock and started looking.

Originally I'd planned to buy a construction backhoe. I'd seen some last fall for what I considered a reasonable price. Of course as soon as I started looking the prices doubled. The other problem is that even a small backhoe weighs 14,000# which puts you into commercial transport territory. I figured it'd be around $2,000 to get one moved to Caribou.

Eventually I relaxed my requirements and started looking at farm tractors. I settled on this:

It's a 1998 Ford 1920. Ford's numbering doesn't really make any sense to me, this is a 32hp machine. 4wd with a 12spd transmission. Most folks look for hydrostatic machines so a gear transmission is usually a little cheaper. For loader work it's not the best but I think for a mower or tiller it'll be fine. The transmission on this one is actually pretty cool, its 4spds each in 3 different ranges. The 4spds are synchronized so you can shift between them on the move. In practice the only on the move shifting I've done is in high range, it's hard on it to start out in road gear with a load.

I rented a U-Haul trailer to move it to Caribou. The tractor is about as narrow as you can go and use a U-Haul trailer, the front wheels just barely span the gap down the middle of the trailer. The old Dodge did a fine job pulling but the tractor has the areodynamics of a brick. I've pulled a similarly heavy car on a U-Haul trailer before and it towed much easier.

I hesitated to take the trailer all the way in to the camp but it was 10pm and I didn't want either the hassle of unhooking the trailer and hooking it back up or the uncertainty of unloading in the dark. In the end I decided I'd drive in until the trailer got hung up but it never did. Returning the trailer require a 90 point turn to get headed back up the road at camp.

Ideally the Ford is going to take over some mowing duties from the old Super M. I plan to get a 5' 3pt mower which will be much more convenient to use. Unfortunately it appears that the PTO clutch is stuck on. I hooked on to our 6' mower but couldn't get the PTO to engage. You can hear the gears clash and jump and it kicks back out. I need to pull the clutch inspection plate and have a look around. With any luck it'll be an easy fix.

Even with the fault I'm pretty happy, the engine starts with just a nudge of the key and has no computer controls. When I bought it I asked about the glow plugs and the guy said "I've never used them." I believe him, this thing has the best starting engine I've ever seen.

Along with a mower I'd like to get a scraper blade and maybe a backhoe. Ford/New Holland made one specifically for this machine, I saw one for sale just yesterday but it appears to be gone today. Alternately there are 3pt backhoes that are probably fine if you keep the limitations of the machine in mind. For now I'm pleased to be able to move some rocks/dirt. Angie has been building a wood fired pizza oven and the dirty old Ferd hauled a bunch of rocks for that project...

A new toy

I've been looking at garden tractor loaders off and on for a couple years now. I even bought plans to build my own which of course was relegated to the "round tuit" pile.

Today I picked up a 1977 Cub Cadet 1650 (16hp, hydrostatic drive) with a loader on it. I think the loader was homemade with some modifications after initial construction.

I paid $1200 which is about half what I would normally expect to pay for such a thing. The electric PTO clutch doesn't work so I can't engage the hydraulics to run the loader but it starts easily even in the teens and is able to slide the loader bucket along pretty well.

I've been researching the PTO clutch and as with most things I won't really know whats up until I dig into it, the clutch itself is pretty simple and only about $150 if I find it needs replacement. The previous owner said it worked and then started blowing fuses, the wiring is a little hacked but not too bad so I'll pull it apart and see whats going on.

The hydraulics look like they were rigged by a halfwit, I plan to replace some of the hoses with hard lines since they're too short to route better than they already are. I'd like to replace the single cylinder currently hooked up for the bucket with two cylinders on the lift arms. Getting that stupid looking big cylinder out of the way would allow the hood to open correctly.

Anyway its a fun new toy and as I told the neighbor it'll keep my out of the bars.

You CAN direct to Vegas!

A couple months ago I bemoaned the lack of direct flights to Las Vegas from  greater Boston. Today I actually booked my trip and just on a whim once again tried Bradley airport in Hartford. I like Bradley, its only 10 miles farther from my house than Boston Logan, Google says that 10 miles will take me 20 minutes but I don't believe it. Its a small regional airport, easy to get into and easy to get out of. I flew out of there to Vegas last year and I'm going to fly from there to Los Angeles in a couple days. Anyway I thought I'd checked Bradley for a direct to Vegas back in January but either I didn't check, or I didn't do a good job, or more likely our stupid travel booking system at work missed the flight. As it was I very nearly didn't spot it today but completely by accident I managed to find that holy grail, a direct flight from Boston to Las Vegas and joy of joys its at 11:30 in the morning. Many of the west coast or Vegas flights leave so dang early, they make you leave home at sparrow fart and then you can't get into your hotel room yet when you get there... This flight gets me into Vegas at something like 3pm which is a great time to take a nap.

Yes a nap, remember this is a work trip that I've taken 7 times already. I'm Las Vegas-ed out. I don't know what hi-jinks we'll be up to but I'm reasonably sure there won't be much if any time spent on the Vegas strip and nearly no time spent gambling...