Not car-related, but almost. Needing a little levity now anyway.
Mowing Misadventures
About 3 months ago, I bought a White GT-2055 riding mower at the local Family Center. Seemingly a nice machine. 60" deck, twin-cylinder engine, 3-point. Almost bought a Deere, but the tractor shop closed early and I wanted a mower *now*.
Got it home, mowed a while, and the driveshaft for the deck came off. Put it back on and mowed a while longer and it came off again. Repeat ad infinitum until two weeks ago when it came off at high speed and destroyed the shaft. Took it back to Family Center where they said they'd buy it back from me at a 15% discount once they got a new driveshaft for it. My other reasons for wanting to return it were steering problems and it didn't seem powerful enough (at 20 horses) for the size of the deck. Told them I found that acceptable as I'd rather take a $1k butt-kicking than have to live with that mower anymore.
They finally got the driveshaft in it yesterday afternoon so I went out there and bought a 72" finish mower to pull behind the old tractor (my beloved Ford 2N), then cut me a check for the difference.
Was getting ready to strap the new mower onto the trailer when I said "Ummmmm... Guys? This thing's only 60 inches."
Turned out they had no 6-foot finish mowers.
Off to the tractor dealer. They had 6-foot finish mowers but they were a lot more expensive. Decided I'd had enough of the mowing problems and would fix them for good. Saw a 2-year old JD 455 diesel with a 60" deck and bought it.
Got it home and mowed for a bit, then had to go to my daughter's baseball game. Got home later and when I was getting ready to show it off to Robin, it barely turned over but did start. Figured it just needed to be run for a while.
My neighbor frequently complains about the "beer holder" on his Grasshopper not being deep enough to safely hold a beer, so I filled up the fender-mounted tool storage with ice and a couple of beers and drove it down there to show it off. Left it running while we safely disposed of the beers, then went home to do a little night-mowing.
Ran it for about an hour total, then put it in the garage. Immediately tried to see if it would start again. Cranked slowly for a couple of turns, then "BLAM!!!". I thought to myself "Wow! I've never heard a diesel backfi.... Hey, I recognize that smell."
Yep. Battery exploded in a very dramatic way. I'd had a motorcycle battery explode a foot away from me once, causing minor injuries, but this battery was much larger. I'm glad nobody was injured. Although my ears were ringing for a while. Explosions in large metal buildings are among the more interesting-sounding explosions.
A related side story:
We've got people around here all the time doing remodeling, etc to the house and have given them all "Unlikely Superhero" names (after a game by the same name on "Who's Line Is It?". We've got "Kitchen Man" (our full-time employee for the past 6 months and likely next 2 years -- he's on to other projects here now that the kitchen is done), "The Plumber", "Wallpaper Woman", "Furnace Guy", etc.
Had a local kid start working for us full-time on Monday to pick up the slack on the projects and maintenance around here. After a couple of days, I told him about our Superhero thing and that we hadn't come up with a name yet for him. He suggested "Slave Boy" (good-naturedly) and it stuck.
Anyway, SB is working out but his lack of knowledge of things I thought were imprinted on the male DNA are a source of constant amusement.
I'll report some of his misadventures/enlightenments here.
How's he relate to my misadventures in lawn mowing? Well, I had him use our old MTD rider (solid runner, but not up to the task around here) and told him to mow the front yard adjoining the house. Took him about 2 hours to mow only a few thousand square feet. Knew nothing about mowing in a pattern. He just aims the thing at any tall grass that catches his eye.
After a while I realize I'm hearing the mower in the distance (really working hard and hitting lots of rocks) but not seeing him anymore. I go out to check it out and he's mowing my brush-hog only field with this little 38" rider. Anyway, I found it amusing. And told him so, kinda.
Hold on. This one's funnier:
Yesterday I printed out the lubrication/service checklist for the backhoe, gave him the manual, and told him to give it the 10-hour service (basically just greasing about 50-odd zerk fittings). Also on my checklist is cleaning of the interior and exterior. I told him that greasing a fitting meant pumping the handle on the grease gun until he saw fresh grease oozing out of the joint.
He came in about an hour later wanting me to check his work.
I was pleased to note that all of the joints had very visible fresh grease on them. A bit much perhaps, but there's no such thing as too much grease for this thing.
On closer inspection, though, I noticed that the fresh grease was a bit too smooth and too uniform.
Turned out what he was doing was squirting grease at the joints then smoothing it with his finger. First clue was when he asked me why each of them had a "bolt" nearby. He was referring to the zerk (zerx?) fittings, which I noted had no fresh grease on them.
What followed was a quick lesson in loose tolerances on heavy equipment, the reason for those tolerances, the enormity of their loads, why we want grease *inside* these parts, and the role of those "bolts" in seeing to it the grease got where it would do some good.
Had him do it again from scratch.
After he left for the day, and I went out to move the backhoe, I about fell on my back getting in the thing. Grease *everywhere*. All over every place a person would grab hold of or step on the machine. And grease all over the driveway. He was apparently flicking excess grease from his fingers onto the driveway. In one spot, it looked like he pumped the grease gun several times on the driveway, presumably to make sure it was working.
In fact, he just arrived. Time to go out and have a little chat with him about the dearth of opportunities out there for a superhero called "The Kid Formerly Known as Slave Boy". <g>
Bob |
