May 31, 2008
Lawn Wars
About two weeks ago, my lawnmover crawled to a halt, refusing to be in drive or reverse. It was quite and ordeal pushing it into the driveway, since apparently neutral wasn’t neutral. After enlisting Amy’s help, we finally got the darn thing into the garage, where I discovered that in my haste, I had put the break to full-on. Oops! Granted, it still wouldn’t drive or reverse. I was fearing a busted transmission.
A few days later, I finally got time to look at it, and got so far as to remove the cutting deck from it. Having never done it before, this proved to be really hard, though in retrospect was annoyingly easy to do. Then I had to weed and it was late, so I got no further except to see that a spring that holds the tension pulley for the drive belt appeared to no longer be connected to the frame of the lawnmower. Looked like a drive belt slipped off problem at this point, and I was content the it wasn’t going to be an annoyingly expensive fix (such as a new transmission!)
On Thursday, I finally got to work on it again. Feeling around from underneath it seemed like the drive belt was indeed not resting happily in its lovely pulleys. The problem was that I couldn’t get at them… until I found that the thing the battery rests in could be removed, so that I have top access. Joy! Seemed pretty easy to put it back on, except that on the large pulley, the belt was slipped off near a spot next to the frame. Somehow, the belt managed to be squeezed through a space less than half its size! After trying futilely to work the giant into its tiny pants (okay, okay, so I’m bad at metaphors tonight), I decided that I’d just have to remove the pulley. I had this lovely socket set I got awhile back that has been woefully underused. Eyeballing the hex nut, I grabbed a socket that seemed to be about the right size and found that… I didn’t know, because there was a bar above the hex nut, just enough so that I couldn’t fit the socket on. Naturally, there was no easy (or easily visible) way to remove it. That didn’t stop me from trying to use the socket, mind you, but I didn’t put any real effort into it, as I knew it was a physical impossibility. So… pliers! Pliers like to slip. Pulleys like to… turn! I was thwarted by both my own insufficient grip and the inherent turning ability of turning parts. After about two hours from my starting point, I gave up for the night.
Which brings me to today. While returning from Amy’s parents, we followed an ambulance (sorta, it was going faster than we were, so we were lagging behind it, really). It turned down the route that leads to the main drag, and we continued on towards home, thinking little of it (except for being confused as to why a Saxonburg ambulance was heading to a Buffalo Twp accident or whatever, when the Buffalo Twp Ambulance was closer, and actually in its own parking lot. odd). After getting home, I grabbed some hardware-purchasing money and went out to get a wrench. My 19mm wrench seemed just barely too small when I’d tried it before, so I figured I’d get a 20 (or 21) and then similar sizes in in the stupid English measurement system.
Now, I take back roads to the hardware store, and the main road back, because it’s nice and happily traffic lights and right turns. As I get to the part where the back road stops at another road and then continues about 50 feet down from that point, I stop at the stop sign… and see a TON of cars coming from my left. Wut. I mean, this is a road that barely gets traffic. I see maybe 1 or 2 cars on this route when I take it. This was about 20 or more.
Finally the onslaught stops, and I turn on the the last stretch of this back road, which takes me to the main road, south of True Value. … and encounter a huge backup of cars. After about 12 minutes I finally get to turn north and am almost to the hardware store.. when there is a fire police guy waving all traffic into the Giant Eagle parking lot. The northbound lane is blocked by his truck.
So I go into the parking lot, and out its back end (where another fire guy is turning everyone south), and go across the road to True Value. Weiiiiird. I find out in hardware store that there was a n accident up north a way (suddenly the ambulance springs to mind). All southboard traffic was routed to my back road, apparently. Well, that explains it. I buy three candidate wrenches and head home. The homeward trips is much faster due to having no detoured traffic on it.
I get home… to find that all the wrenches are still too small. yay! Back out I go… only to get stuck in the traffic again (I wouldn’t be able to get there by main road anyway)… only worse! 20 minutes later, I get to the store, return all the wrenches and buy a 22mm and a 7/8″ wrench. One of those will fit, darnit!
The 22mm did fit perfectly, and using a screwdrive placed in a hole in the pully, I prop it against the bar and get the nut loosened. Belt goes on, pully goes on, all good except now I have to get the spring on the tension pulley reattached to the frame. This goes much more poorly now that the belt is actually on. I ended up using a tiny bungee cord with little metal hooks to help pull the spring into place. Hooray for innovation! I guess. So I get the belt from the engine to the drive pulley thing settled in, put the cutting deck back on, and it goes into drive. Score!
I drive the mower up to my usually cutting start point, kick the blade deck on, and… well that doesn’t sound right. …then the sound settles down a bit, so I cut down the hill… and notice smoke emitting from the side discharge, along with the usual stream of grass. Crap.
I stop it and flip up the hood, only to discover that the smoke is not from the engine. It was, in fact, coming from the vicinity of a pulley on the cutting deck. Wut. Turns out that part of the cutting deck belt discided to get sucked down between the belt by the idler pulley and another party of the deck’s body. What IS WITH belts getting shoved through places less than half their size?! Anyway. Mmmm.. burnt rubber.
After getting the cutting deck off (again@&^@$%), the neighbor shows up to see if I need help (his son saw my smoking mower and said, “Matt’s lawnmower was smoking!” apparently. Having the situation under hand (I am a pulley-removing master by this point), I thank him for stopping by, get the belt back in the right spot, reattach the deck, try it out, and find that it makes the right sound. Yay!
Then I run out to the hardware store since I broke a cotter pin that attached the deck on one side. Luckily, traffic getting there isn’t too bad, since the southbound lanes of the main road are open now. Still have to go through the Giant Eagle parking lot though. I buy a hitch pin to replace the cotter pin, since the other side of the deck uses one, and they’re easier to remove and reuse. Sometime in the 5 seconds I was in the hardware store, the fire police vanish and all lanes are open again.
So I get home, put the pin in, start up the mower, make a few passes… and the mower starts to feel like it did two weeks ago when the belt was slipping off. Crap! I stop it, kick it into neutral, look under it… and see that the drive belt appears to no longer be in one piece. So, back I go, removing the battery to get at the belt and find that it is in one piece… technically. Effectively it is attached together by a tiny shard of rubber. Either way, it is effectively broken.
Arrggh!
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