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End of a lawn mowing era

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DimensionDude

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2005
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363
Location
Arkansas, USA
My Sears Craftsman riding lawnmower has finally broken something that is not economical to repair. I hadn't mowed in about 3 weeks due to rain almost every day. Didn't rain for two whole days so I decided it was time to get out and mow. The jungle noises coming from the back yard had no influence on my decision. :) Anyway, I had finished mowing and was preparing to do the sweeping when the mower started acting like it was running out of fuel. "Fair enough," I thought since it had been working hard in the thick grass. After letting the engine idle for a few seconds I heard a rhythmic "clack, clack." Uh oh, that can't be good.

Opened the engine up last Friday and found that the crankshaft timing gear was missing two teeth.

I bought the mower second-hand for $300 about 12 years ago. Don't know how old it really is, but the owner's manual has a date of 1982. Of course, I've maintained it over the years, new blades, pulleys, belts, battery, etc.

Went looking for a cheap used mower that I could pull the engine off of (new parts are very expensive). No such animal to be found, so I bought a used (about 4 years old) Troy-Bilt for a decent but not exceptional price. Very impressive power, doesn't bog down in the heavy grass (18.5HP vs 10HP) but I think that I'll miss the old Craftsman a little bit.

Kent
 
I live in the city, small yard front and back so I just use a push mower. The thing never needs oil because it does not get hot enough to burn any up. My mowers get replaced when the wheels rot off, not because of a bad engine.

Even when the grass is high after a bunch of rainy days I need to empty the bagger once for the front and once for the back yard (no raking).

As far as having plastic teeth, stupid design in my opinion. When I was taking the cam shaft out of my 81 Vette (a couple lobes were worn down from bad heat treating) I noticed the teeth were plastic on that motor so I replaced them with a cast aluminum dual set. Thats the last time I need to worry about that setup.

Atari2600a, try watering the lawn once in a while after the sun starts to set. Dead lawns just look so lame.
 
This spring my dad bought a new riding lawnmower and sold the old one. I think it was some 5-10 years old, and he was asking eq. $700. He was flooded with calls from potential buyers.

If I understand correctly, the newest, biggest and most expensive models of riding lawnmowers have four wheel driving. It would be those you can attach devices to sweep gravel or shovel snow in the winter. I wonder when the first lawnmower with ABS brakes, anti-skid and airbags will arrive.
 
I leave all the 15,000 year old bushes strictly alone here. Oh, well, if one of them gets sassy with my septic line, too bad for it. I have one I have to get into line already. Time to borrow my neighbor's 6 foot iron bar for some "trimming". I wasn't vigorous enough with my last effort, grew back in 18 months.

Edit: whew, there! Trimmed that guy down to size. I thought about leaving it along but the piss-ants were using it as a staging area for attacks on my dog's water bowls.
 
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I actually went to the trouble of washing down my 10-year-old mower the other day. Damn! I didn't know the engine was that color...I thought it had always been black!

--T
 
My new (to me) Troy-Bilt has an automatic transmission (hydrostatic drive) and "cruise control." When you reach a comfortable mowing speed, you press the button and it will hold that speed (and you can take your foot off the pedal). Oh yeah, it also has a cup holder.

All the safety lockout switches work and that's a bit of a pain. You have to disengage the blades before putting it in reverse. I think that an override switch will be installed soon (some new mowers have this from the factory).

I would think that 4 wheel drive would be expensive and overkill. Of course I'm just mowing, no gardening or snow removal. The big thing now seems to be the zero turn radius mowers. Bet it takes a while to get used to driving those. I'm gonna have to get accustomed to removing my foot from the pedal to stop, I'm still trying to push the nonexistant clutch pedal.

Kent
 
Unknown K,
I agree that plastic gears don't always make sense, however I was glad that the starter motor on the old mower had a nylon pinion gear. The motor bushing wore out and chewed up the nylon gear, no damage to the flywheel. Replaced the bushing and pinion and it was like new.

In this particular Briggs and Stratton engine, the crankshaft doesn't have a separate timing gear, the teeth are machined into the shaft. Broken teeth meant replacing the crank. A brand new engine cost between $600 and $700 locally, I spent just a little bit more than that for a good, used mower. I couldn't see spending several hundred dollars repairing a 25-year old engine.

Kent
 
DimensionDude said:
Unknown K,
I agree that plastic gears don't always make sense, however I was glad that the starter motor on the old mower had a nylon pinion gear. The motor bushing wore out and chewed up the nylon gear, no damage to the flywheel. Replaced the bushing and pinion and it was like new.

In this particular Briggs and Stratton engine, the crankshaft doesn't have a separate timing gear, the teeth are machined into the shaft. Broken teeth meant replacing the crank. A brand new engine cost between $600 and $700 locally, I spent just a little bit more than that for a good, used mower. I couldn't see spending several hundred dollars repairing a 25-year old engine.

Kent
Click to expand...

I guess if the rest of the mower works well then a repair might be worthwhile. Buying a used machine costs more and you could be buying somebody elses lemmon. New mowers would be expensive and not made to last 25 years either.
 
Mine looks something like this:
ReelMower.png


haha J/K, I threw one like that from the '80s last year, and decided I would just use my dads when mowin' time came around.

Any one else notice that by using an apostrophe for the G at the end of the word Mowin' I didnt save any energy? I still pushed the same amount of keys...

EDIT: Oops, just realized when I used IMG code it made the pic show up on the forum...Oh well, I had been wanting to to figure that one out for awhile...
 
Yzzerdd said:
Any one else notice that by using an apostrophe for the G at the end of the word Mowin' I didnt save any energy? I still pushed the same amount of keys...
Click to expand...

One of my favorite peeves is that whenever you have to fill in an on-line form with your address, when it comes to the part where you enter the state, they always ues a drop-down menu of all 50 states, requiring a minimum of three mouse clicks (even more if you have to scroll down the menu to find your state). If they would just provide a box to type in, the two-letter acronym for the state would only require two finger motions instead of three. Just think of all that wasted energy, especially when you have to remove your hand from the kbd to mouse, move it, click it, then back to kbd again. I wonder how much all that extra heat produced contributes to GlobalWarming vs. say, cow pharts, etc. Hmmmnn, mebbe I should apply for a gov't grant to research this potentially serious problem...

--T
 
Now when this thread has degenerated, let me just chime in on what Terry wrote. Scientists recently calculated how much gas cows produce, and have come to the conclusion the all the cows in the world contribute more to global warming than all the cars in the world, or something like that. It lead to research teams all around the world have been granted millions worth of extra money to find a way to make cows pass less gas! Perhaps they will put them on diet, or find a type of grass that is easier to digest.

So, if anyone thought of getting a cow to graze your lawn instead of using a petrol driven lawnmower, it might be a step in the wrong direction environmentally. I don't know about goats and thereabouts.
 
On the "drop down state list", I still use a trick from Win 3.1 days. I "focus" on the drop down list, then, just keep pressing the first letter of the state until the correct one shows up (NV in my case). I know, it's more keystrokes but they are close to mindless ones.
 
Mowing the lawns is a pain in the bum when it is perpetually soggy due to moss. And when you have 3 it's even more annoying.

Relating to carlssons post, Kangaroos have bacteria in their gut which means they don't fart due to some magnificent science. Scientists are trying to introduce this bacteria to cattle. I have no idea how it's going. I don't even know if it'strue, but it would be nice if it was.
 
carlsson said:
....Scientists recently calculated how much gas cows produce...
Click to expand...

Bravo Carlsson... Absolutely funny!!!

Now to sum them up, let's give it up for the old lady:

A little old lady goes to the doctor and says, "I can't stop passing gas. Luckily, my farts don't smell and are always silent. As a matter of fact, I've farted twice since I've been here in your office, but you didn't even notice."

"I can help you," says the doc. "Take these pills and come back next week."

The next week, the lady returns. "Doctor," she says, "I don't know what you gave me, but now my farts smell awful."

The doctor says, "Good, we fixed your sinuses! Now let's work on your hearing."

:biggrin:
 
Vlad said:
Could we all at least make an effort to stay on topic? C'mon folks...
Click to expand...

Or not.

Either way DimensionDude, feel free to start a new thread if you wish or if you want something else done, feel free to contact me VIA PM.

Thread Closed.

-Vlad
 
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