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Since so many of you seemed to get so much sadistic pleasure reading about my trials with mowing lawns, I've decided to reprint a post that I wrote almost two years ago on the same topic.
Enjoy!
My John Deere, Hydrostatic, Zero-Radius-Turn Lawn Mower
All right. I’ll admit that I am not the most mechanically inclined individual that ever breathed air. That’s a given. I’m not, and I know I’m not. In fact, I know so little about that sort of thing that I don’t even know enough to know how much I don’t know. Honestly.
I put the key in the ignition of my car and turn it. If the car doesn’t start, it’s broke. Simple as that.
I’m not saying that I’m an idiot. I’m not. In fact, I’m really intelligent and knowledgeable…on selected topics.
Ask me to write a story. No problem.
Want me to give a business presentation in front of 500 people? Okay.
Can I expound upon the genius and glories of Shakespeare? In my sleep!
You’d like to hire me to direct a comedy or act in a dramatic work? Piece of cake.
Cut, split and stack ten cords of firewood? You got it.
Take a riding lawnmower tire off of its rim?…
Well?…
Chances are you may have to wait a while.
Okay. What do you want from me? That’s just the way things are.
So, with that in mind, let me tell you a story.
Two years ago, Mary was driving around the back roads of Maine when she came across a "Moving Sale." Somebody was moving to another town and didn’t want to take twelve years’ worth of accumulated garbage with them. So what’s the best thing to do if you don’t want to move all that crap? Sell it! Somebody will buy it!
Well, it just so happened that the fellow who was moving was in the landscaping business, and he had a five-year-old John Deere hydrostatic, zero-radius-turn, 48-inch- mower-deck lawnmower for sale.
All excited, Mary came back to our Maine house, got me and brought me, kicking and screaming, to the sale. When I got there and actually saw the machine, I was impressed. It went forward and backward, and it did it really fast. So I bought it. (The fellow assured me that the machine had seen nothing but light duty. It had only been used to cut the lawns of little old ladies on Sunday afternoons…or something like that.)
Anyway, we bought the thing and brought it home to Connecticut, and I spent two summers cutting my lawn with it. This past summer, I also cut the lawn of an old farmer neighbor of mine named Merton.
Now, Merton has got the lawn from Hell. Seriously. It’s big, and it’s bumpy, and the grass in it grows as if every single blade is situated directly over a septic tank. But I’ve got a John Deere hydrostatic, zero-radius-turn, 48-inch-mower-deck lawnmower! I can mow anything!
Two weeks ago, I was mowing Merton’s lawn when suddenly I smelled the unmistakable reek of burning rubber. Three seconds later, the blades stopped turning. I shut the thing off, climbed out of the seat, got down on my side and peered up into the inner workings of the machine. "Damn!" I said to myself as I gazed upon all the black and mybloggers thing-a-ma-bobs, "The thing’s broke!"
Luckily, as I stood up, I spied something in the grass directly behind the mower. It was the drive belt that goes from the engine of the mower to the mower deck. (For all of you who are like me, I’m talking about the skinny black stringy thing that makes the blades turn.) It was cut in half, and, come to find out, it was as hot as all Hell when I tried to pick it up. (Who knew?)
SSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I went to the John Deere store, remnants of the destroyed belt in hand, and said, "See this? I need a new one." The chubby clerk with the John Deere baseball cap looked at the belt, reached up on the wall behind him and pulled down a brand new one off the rack. He slapped it down on the counter and said, "$66.27!"
A rubber belt! You’ve got to be kidding me! I left the John Deere store and went across the street to the NAPA Auto Parts store instead. The same scene played out there with one exception – the $66.27 turned into $22.14. (That John Deere logo printed on the belt in the other place must cost the manufacturer a fortune!)
So, I came back home, put on the new belt, started the mower, stopped the mower, took the belt off, and then put it back on right. (Go ahead. Laugh. For your freaking information, this mower deck of mine has seven pulleys on it, and it takes just a little bit more than a teaspoonful of brains to figure out what the stupid pattern is. Of course, it would be easier if I looked up the diagram in the owner’s manual…if I had the owner’s manual.)
When the mission was successfully completed, I hopped back on my trusty mechanical steed and took off on the ten-minute trip to Merton’s house. Once there, I pulled the little doo-hickey that engages the blades. When I heard the satisfying whirring sound of the blades spinning at top speed, I hit the gas, and began mowing Merton’s lawn again with my John Deere hydrostatic, zero-radius-turn, 48-inch- mower-deck lawn mower…for one lap. Then I smelled that old burning rubber smell once again, and looked behind the mower and found the skinny, black, stringy thing in the grass again.
It was at that point that Merton came out of his house and sat on his back stoop as he always does whenever he sees that I am over to mow his lawn. That’s my signal to go over and spend some neighborly visiting time with the lonely old man who is now pretty much house-ridden.
When I told Merton my lawnmower problems, he suggested that I check the blades. "If them blades are dull," he wheezed, "they’ll put an awful strain on the belts and cause major problems."
Well, I hadn’t even looked at the blades since I bought the machine. So after my weekly visit with old Merton, I drove the machine home. When it was safely parked in my barn, I reached under the mower deck and was surprised to find THREE blades…all about as sharp as spoons.
***
Okay. So after another trip to the NAPA Auto Parts store to purchase a $22.14 drivebelt sans the John Deere logo, I decided that I was going to become Joe Mechanic. I could feel the testosterone surging through my veins at this point, and I even considered going out and buying a blue jumpsuit with my name embroidered in a red-ringed, white patch over my left shirt pocket.
After sizing up the situation, I came to the conclusion that the only way to get the blades off the machine was to remove the mower deck from the rest of the mower. All I had to do was remove three cotter pins and slide three bolts out of their resting places.
Easy, right?
An hour and a half later, there was an incident involving a four-pound hammer, a smashed thumb, and me hopping around the barn clutching my right hand (I’m left-handed) screaming like a banchee. Finding no words suitable to express my frustration and disappointment, I had to invent new, multi-syllabic expletives to slake my anger. Only after all of that did the mower deck slide out from under the mower…just as easy as pie.
Wiping the tears from my face, I managed to lift the deck up on its side and expose the three blades. Okay. All I had to do then was remove three nuts from the bolts that held said blades in position, and the job would be well on the way to completion. Simple, right?
An hour and half later, there was yet another incident involving the same four-pound sledge hammer and a quick lesson from my wife about "lefty-loosey, righty-tighty" for working with nuts and bolts. It was only then that I realized that God was a kid the last time these nuts were removed from their bolts, and each nut and bolt had melded together over the years to become, for all intents and purposes, one inseparable unit.
Okay. I then forded the rivers of sweat that were now running across the floor of the barn, and I reached for the can of Liquid Wrench. After slathering the stuff over every inch of exposed metal on that mower deck, the blades came off quicker than a nymphomaniac’s underwear.
I then put a set of sharpened blades in place on the mower deck and tightened down everything in sight. When this was done, I was ready to just slide the mower deck back under the mower, where it had come from just a couple of hours ago. Then, all that I had to do was put the three locating bolts back in place and attach the cotter pins to them. Simple, right?
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, with the freaking mower deck resisting, with all of its might, to going back TO WHERE IT HAD JUST COME, I went running off in a blind, screaming rage to find my wife for assistance. After searching and screaming her name for about fifteen minutes, I found her out in the middle of the pasture looking for a horseshoe that one of the horses had thrown. My first words to her were, "Why the Hell didn’t you answer me when I called you?"
Her calm and measured response was, "Because I didn’t hear you." Her voice was soft, but the look in her eyes was one that any married man would instantly recognize. It said to me, "Don't mess! Talk nice, or you’ll never get what you want! I mean it!!!!"
Rather than say anything that would get me in trouble, I walked away and went back into my cave. Ten minutes later, she appeared at the barn door. I looked at her and said, in a barely controlled voice, "Would you kindly help me get this F**KING DECK back under THIS F**KING MOWER?"
Actually, all I wanted her to do was slide one of the locating bolts in place while I attempted to bend cold steel with my bare hands. For some reason that escapes me, this time when I pushed the deck, it slid right into place like a nail drawn to a magnet. Mary then slid her bolt in place and looked at me and smilingly said, "That was easy!"
I smiled back. The only thing that saved that Devil mower at that particular moment was the fact that I didn’t have a stick of dynamite handy.
Okay. So after a long rest and a beer, I started the mower and engaged the blades. They spun like three tops. Tired, cranky and sweaty, I then rode the machine again down to Merton’s house. It only took one lap around his yard, for me to discover that something was wrong. The mower deck is 48" wide. It should have cut a clean swath of grass 48" wide. Right? It didn’t. It cut two swaths 16" wide. One swath was on the left, one swath was on the right, and in the middle there was one 16" swath of grass that stood just as tall and proud as you please. I had given Merton’s lawn a Mohawk! The freaking middle blade had been put on upside down!
Anybody want to buy a John Deere hydrostatic, zero-radius-turn, 48-Inch-mower-deck lawnmower? I know where you can pick one up really cheap.
posted on September 28, 2006 7:36 AM (PST)
I can't believe the crazy price different between brands... that is ridiculous!
