It's Got a Couple Good More Years

My son got me a great deal on a riding lawn mower back in 2002. I had just moved into a new house that has ¾ of an acre to mow. My son was working for a wholesale distributor at the time and they had a demo mower they wanted to get rid of. I was able to get it for $800 including the bagger attachment. I thought it was a pretty good deal.

So far it has made it through 11 mowing seasons and is on number 12. Sure I have had a few minor things go wrong with it over the years. Like the time I miss judged the turn and the mower ran half way up my cyclone fence bending the turning tie rod. It is easy to fix. Just take it apart and beat the hell out of it with a hammer on concrete until it is straight and reinstall.

I had to replace the battery after about 4 seasons and somewhere along the way climbing fences made the steering rather sloppy. But it still runs. Then there was the time I ran it into the rock flower garden and one of the blades came off. I changed the blades eventually somewhere in its fourth of fifth season. It took me awhile to figure out how to get the blades off. Running it into the rock garden seemed easier.

Somewhere along the way I lost one of the exhaust pipe bolts. Tried to fix it, but I did not have the right bolt. I had to make do with what I had. A little exhaust leak never hurt anyone and my hearing has been going bad for quite some time.

I have only had to replace the gas cap twice after forgetting to put it back on and running over it with the blades going. Not bad for 11 seasons. My brother got me a new oil filter one year. It was a little large for the mower, but he said it was an over sized and would protect the mower better. It worked well for about a half season until the rubbing on the frame cause a pin hole leak and I lost half the oil. I am sure that was not the greatest on the engine.

The tires have that green slime stuff in them and I don’t have to worry about flat tires. The mower also works good picking up leaves in the gravel driveway. It only picks up a few rocks. Around the 9^th season the mower deck belt snapped. I picked up a new one and changing it was easy. At the beginning of the 11 the season the mower started acting like something was slipping and the ride was jerky. I decide I had better tackle taking the drive belt off. Removing the drive belt is no easy task. When I finally got it off I realized it probably had another season of wear left. It was only cracked in a couple of places and only had a few chunks missing. But since I had it off already I decided to go ahead and replace it.

I also put on a couple of new blades. It is amazing how well new blades cut the grass and seem to have eliminated the clogging problem I have had for the last few years. There was not much left of the old blades.

Even with a new belt the mower still slips and jerks when you are in forward. My neighbor said I should check the oil in the transmission. He is probably right, I should do that. I went out this week to mow the lawn and the battery was dead. I check the water level. The cells were a little low, so I added water and put it on the charger. I got it running after a few minutes.

I went out today and the battery was dead again. I put it on the charger. No luck. But it did make a big back fire. I decided to use jumper cables and hooked it up to our boat battery and after another big back fire I got it started.

I think the back fire made it leak a little more exhaust and sounds a little louder. I got the lawn mowed even with the jerking motion and the loud exhaust. I parked it in the garage. Took out the old battery so I can get a new one this week.

I think it still has a couple of years mowing left in it.