a little twisted metal for tuesday

now that spring is here those of us with lawns gotta mow and shit…

…although my “lawn” is now more weeds than grass thanks to last year’s record drouth. in fact, last year i only had to mow once between memorial day and labor day ’cause we had no rain so everything pretty much died. i sacrificed my lawn to the sun gods in the name of saving water for the community at large. okay, so i was just lazy – but the first one sounded a shit-load better!

so i had already mowed a couple times this winter (“winter” was not a term used around here this year as we didn’t really have one – but we had a shit-ton of rain, so the lawn sprang back in mutant form and had to be dealt with. but all of a sudden my mower had issues.

first off was the blade issue – easily fixed, but took some muscle. basically the last three inches of one side of the blade got bent straight down. how this happened i have NO idea. i can say this – for all the pounding it took with a heavy hammer to bend it back proper i must have hit the shit outta something large and stout. but this was a fairly quick fix and i was back to the task at hand…

…sorta.

see, my mower was doing this weird thing where it would start up and run perfect…for two seconds. LITERALLY two seconds. like my mower couldn’t get a three count to save it’s WWE title. in the process of re-starting it forty-seven times i broke the rope…this added a day to the process as i got a bit “gung ho” on taking things apart to fix said rope and invariably dis-assembled and unwound the flat wind spring that recoils the rope back in when you pull it.

for anybody who’s never had to hand wind a flat wound spring let me save you some trouble – if you can avoid it, don’t. i did it, the first time backwards, and had to RE-do it. a few times. by the end of it i was the fucking spring MASTER…but don’t do it if you don’t have to. i know i won’t do it again…and i’m the master!

moving on…

so the rope was fixed, and the mower would start…and run perfect…for only two fucking seconds. still. what the fuck? i theorized it had to be a choke-out issue. it takes three things to make an engine run – spark, air, and fuel. and i could control two of the three with new parts, i reckoned. so i bought a new spark plug. and a new air filter. and did an oil change on it using full sythetic (it’s what the bmw and camaro use, so it’s all i have at the house).

and still with only a standing two count.

a neighbor popped by on his way out (they moved, which i’m still not really happy about) and tried to start it while i watched, which is when i noticed something i’d never noticed before – the throttle, which appeared to be held open (or at least should be) by a spring that was attached to a piece of metal that was now bent back so the spring had no tension…

…i just realized the start of my spring was almost ruined by two springs. this is irony…or so i’m told.

this is where there’s supposed to be a pic, but there’s not – and i’ll explain why in a bit.

the piece of metal that WAS bent back, releasing tension and closing the throttle on the damn thing. after all the rope drama and the money dropped on new parts all i had to do was bend this piece of metal about half an inch (which unlike the blade is pretty flimsy and probably got bent back by a low tree branch or something) and it ran like a champ…

…amazing how a little twisted metal can fuck up your day, huh? on to the yard work!

so, everything above here was written a week or two ago at the end of march. since then i’ve mowed twice, and things got worse. see, unknown to me one of the three bolts that hold the engine on to the frame was rusted through and not holding shit. this caused some vibration, ending up vibrating just enough to vibrate all the above mentioned throttle body, plus the air filter and air intake, OFF THE FUCKING MOWER!

hence no picture – see…told you i’d explain!

i was able to re-attach with a zip tie or two. yes, that’s right – my mower engine is now (sorta) held together with zip ties. but today bolt number two gave, so now the vibrations are twice as bad, and pulling the rope causes the engine to raise into the flame and the rotation of the blade banging into the frame causes it to not start. the only way to combat this was to put a cinder block on top of the mower (to weigh it down) and go from there. not good, not safe. is this the end of the mower? time will tell…