Today my small engine guy and his brother came over to help me get the Bolens 1455 garden tractor running. This is the tractor I would like to use to mow grass and weeds at the Llano wye and along the Cap Metro ROW. We put the parking pawl bushing back on and filled it up with hydraulic fluid. Added some gasoline and oil and then turned it over. Took a couple of tries but the engine caught and was running well. So I backed it out of the shed, gave it a turn around and brought it back to attach the mower deck I bought from Oregon and had shipped down. It took a while before we got it mounted, but then the rear wheels were rubbing against the wheels on the deck. We had to jack up the rear end and switch the rear wheels around on the hub to bring them in several inches. We got them put back on and finalized all the connections (including no-seize on the PTO-mower driveshaft). Then we brought the tractor over to the driveway, turned it on and engaged the PTO.
Well, the mower got going and it sounded impressive. We ran it for several minutes and then disengaged the PTO. We were talking about the test when suddenly sparks started coming from the front of the engine. I had forgotten to reinstall the battery tiedown and the battery moved far enough for the positive terminal to contact the hood. Not good, but it appears no permanent damage.
When we moved the tractor off the driveway, there were some puddles on it. We looked under the tractor with a flashlight and it was full of gear oil slung out from the mower gearbox. It appears the pressure of operation, probably after many years of disuse, caused the gaskets and/or oil seals on the gearbox to fail.
This has implications for the rail-mower, since the identical mower gearbox on its deck probably has just as old gaskets and seals, as does the spare gearbox I have in the garage. I think we are going to need to go into all of them, replace the gaskets and seals, and hopefully that will prevent further problems.
One more item to get done, sooner rather than later. Frank Glatzl and I are planning another work session on Saturday, Nov. 19. He is going to come out and try to get the mower deck mounted to the rail-mower trailer. Naturally it would be good that the potential mower gearbox problem is taken care of by then. Always something, eh? But the good thing is, we are finding out about possible problems before they strike, allowing us to keep to our proposed schedule of testing the rail-mower on the next Llano branch work session on Saturday, Dec. 9, up in Kingsland.
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