Mower Failure

Howdy all,

Just a quick update. Nothing much still happening. Bored most days. And rainy days are the worse. Trying to figure out a couple of things that may allow me to get into a couple new hobbies. I am doing a lot of “reading” — well Alexa reads my Audible books to me. On the last of John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” series. These have a real Robert Heinlein vibe to them.

I have a couple of his other books to start. But before that will be Hank Green’s latest. “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor“ is a follow up to his “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing”. It was quite different from what I expected. Has some insight into the YouTube world, while being a “fun” science fiction novel.

And then back to the Foundation Series from Asimov — they are looking to create a TV series based upon those books (to be out next year) and I want to be ready…

On the house front, very little going on. Today I ripped out the back end of my mower to find out why the Self-Propel function quit. Seeing as it is a battery powered mower, it doesn’t have the same belt driven drive unit as a gas engine machine. It uses a smaller DC motor connected to a gear box on an axle with gears on each end, driving the real wheels. It does use the same sort of cable pull to engage the drive, but it really only goes into a box on the handle and which flips a switch, completing the power loop with the battery. Seems to be very much over-engineered to me.

Anyway, after taking things apart, it looks like it is the DC Motor that has a/is at, fault. While it had been completely dead, it now stutters a little, after a couple good hammer taps. I am not opening that thing up, but my guess is a solder short somewhere within.

At least, after reassembly, the self-propel now longer causes friction drag on the back wheels, so I can use it as a push mower easier. An online check shows the motor only comes as part of a gear box replacement kit and costs about 1/2 as much as the entire mower.

The mower has a 5 year consumer warranty, so I am in contact with a service center that may be able to handle it. They’ll let me know on Monday. They know they can do gas equipment, but have never worked on the battery versions.

Most likely if they can’t get permission from the manufacturer to fix it under warranty, I will contact the maker and ask if they’ll send me the kit under warranty and I’ll install it.

At least I can now push it around and mow. But it would be nice to have it back to pulling me up out of the drainage ditches. That’s where I need it most.

Oh, it was nice to have the room to roll around in the garage on my rolling toolbox seat, and grab the various tools needed to work on the mower. Plenty of room and had it on a bench so I wasn’t bent over hurting the old back.

I’ll update when I know what happens.

Wishing all to

Enjoy Life.