- Joined
- May 27, 2016
- Messages
- 3,469
This is about a repair that I am least proud of. It is an absolute bodge-up hang-together that somehow managed to remain hanging together, and actually works!. A pinnacle of success in turd polishing!
I am up to my ears in defunct mowers, though actually, one of the three is just about getting the ubiquitous Briggs & Stratton run speed regulator set up for a friend. Two had to have the busted pull-cord spring fixed. I just cut off a little, heat the end of the spring where I want it to bend back over, and re-assemble. All always need a scene of underside unpleasant clean-up of caked on grass and mud covering rusting bits. One is in major disassembly, and may never go back together again.
The Dilemma
The lady of the house wants a working mower. Yep - at my place, she mows the grass. The 5 HP Flymo powered walk-behind would no longer be level. That was about a disconnect in the linkage that lets the wheels move together, relying on a rusty split-pin sans washer. The walk-behind no longer worked because of belt jammed up in the seized up mechanism, and the blade had somehow mangled up the plastic parts under.
One cannot just call up Flymo, and ask for spares replacements of the plastic bits underneath a RL550 circa 2003 (about). You might as well be asking for rocking horse poo! The choice was to spend several hundred pounds out of the surface grinder fund, or try and patch it up. I was reluctant to let go because of the investment in the other repairs so far, and I already bought a replacement air filter.
So - I took it apart enough to untangle the belt, and sort of refurbish things back to moving. The pictures show what I did out of a scrap piece of aluminium sheet from the garage. It's a pop-rivet abomination, and at one stage, I ran out of 3.2mm washers, so I had to improvise. I figured out how the remaining plastic bits jigsaw went together, and I gave them a prosthetic metal support. Various 1/4-20 flange nuts became M6 galvanized with nylok nuts.
OK - so it now works, but although I am trying so hard to evict these unwanted extras out of my life, this crap just keeps on happening. The surface grinder, and various other stuff seem to keep slipping away. This time, maybe I started to claw things back a little!
I am up to my ears in defunct mowers, though actually, one of the three is just about getting the ubiquitous Briggs & Stratton run speed regulator set up for a friend. Two had to have the busted pull-cord spring fixed. I just cut off a little, heat the end of the spring where I want it to bend back over, and re-assemble. All always need a scene of underside unpleasant clean-up of caked on grass and mud covering rusting bits. One is in major disassembly, and may never go back together again.
The Dilemma
The lady of the house wants a working mower. Yep - at my place, she mows the grass. The 5 HP Flymo powered walk-behind would no longer be level. That was about a disconnect in the linkage that lets the wheels move together, relying on a rusty split-pin sans washer. The walk-behind no longer worked because of belt jammed up in the seized up mechanism, and the blade had somehow mangled up the plastic parts under.
One cannot just call up Flymo, and ask for spares replacements of the plastic bits underneath a RL550 circa 2003 (about). You might as well be asking for rocking horse poo! The choice was to spend several hundred pounds out of the surface grinder fund, or try and patch it up. I was reluctant to let go because of the investment in the other repairs so far, and I already bought a replacement air filter.
So - I took it apart enough to untangle the belt, and sort of refurbish things back to moving. The pictures show what I did out of a scrap piece of aluminium sheet from the garage. It's a pop-rivet abomination, and at one stage, I ran out of 3.2mm washers, so I had to improvise. I figured out how the remaining plastic bits jigsaw went together, and I gave them a prosthetic metal support. Various 1/4-20 flange nuts became M6 galvanized with nylok nuts.
OK - so it now works, but although I am trying so hard to evict these unwanted extras out of my life, this crap just keeps on happening. The surface grinder, and various other stuff seem to keep slipping away. This time, maybe I started to claw things back a little!
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I love pop rivets for sheet metal, so fast and so much fun!
