I love working in the garden. Not just the purty flowers, but mowing the lawn, pruning, etc. I like digging in the dirt, really. I was mowing Twil's lawn this weekend. Along the street in front of her house is a ditch and the grass grows very tall on the banks and in places on the bottom. It's a pretty good sized ditch, and I've seen it carry a LOT of water when it rains hard. It's important to keep it clear, because it *will* flood, and that would be bad, right? Anyhow, here's a shot of part of the bank that I've already mowed.
I have to push the mower perpendicularly to the flow of the ditch, tip it down, bite some grass, then lever it up and move it over one mower-width, repeat. The bank's far too steep to mow along the direction of flow, I'd literally drive it into the ditch.
Anyhow, I was mowing, mowing, mowing, BANG! No more mowing. I'd uncovered the stump of a steel pole. Motherfucker.
Killed the mower, so I pulled it up onto the flat part, and gave it another pull. It did start but the vibration was horrible. I turned it off, pushed it into the driveway, and tipped it over. I'd bent the output shaft. Goddammit, I've only mowed one time with this mower, now it was trash. Fuck.
Well... I thought, hm, I can't be the first guy to hit something with the mower, what does the internet say??? Turns out it has plenty to say about the subject. I found one thread of discussion that talked about taking the mower apart, cracking the case, etc. LOL, nope. Further searching revealed the
Hillbilly Repair Shop with an episode dedicated to straightening a bent lawnmower shaft. **Exactly** what I needed.
I watched that one, and a couple others including one that taught me about dial indicators, a tool I don't have ($160 and only in the warehouse days away, too much and too late). But I learned about a hillbilly dial indicator, which I adapted for my own use. I found the high point, moved it to 12 o'clock, and then smacked it with the sledgehammer. I tried not to think about what I was doing to the bearings and seals, but I felt I had nothing to lose.
Here are three videos of my progress,
before
during
and after
.
There really aren't any pictures of me working because I had my hands full, no tripod, etc. I just wanted to fix the fucking mower and cut the grass. As I worked on it I refined my technique. I found removing the plug made pulling the starter rope to turn the crank easier and smoother. I found that a pair of visegrips let me move the shaft precisely so that the high point was at 12 o'clock, suitable for whacking. I also found out that the last little bit of straightening really needed a serious hit with the hammer, several hits as a matter of fact.