Yesterday

[Cusser]

Yesterday, went to mow some tumbleweeds with my 2005 LT1000 lawn tractor.
1. Found a tire was flat; added slime, pumped it up.
2. After 20 minutes of mowing, and moving to the front, my deck belt/blade engagement cable failed. Since I had a new spare one, I didn't try to use a hose clamp to self-engineer attachment to the handle/rod.

3. A little later my left mandrel/spindle locked up, stripped out the top pulley. I also had a spare pulley (and spare mandrels) so I simply swapped in a new one.

 

[slomo]

When it rains it pours at your house. Get that ol' girl running and slay some grass.

slomo

 

[Scrubcadet10]

sounds like someone sabotaging you.

 

[Cusser]

Have hardly mowed in the last 12 months, lack of rain. So mostly tumbleweeds.

 

[Cusser]

Update: a few days ago - still no rain - I was finishing up the tumbleweeds mowing. The left lawn tractor spindle broke, but I had a spare here.


But that caused the top pulley to grind through the left brake bar; since I didn't know that a shop 25 miles away would have such part, I just repaired that temporarily with part of an L- bracket I had here and 4 rivets. All fixed now. New brackets on order.

 

[Cusser]

1. Found a tire was flat; added slime, pumped it up.

Finally bit the bullet and ordered a replacement rear tire yesterday....where the leak showed externally did not go through, apparently air was working its way around to escape.

Also yesterday I bought a non-pneumatic replacement tire for my wheelbarrow at Harbor Freight; the inner tube had been patched several times, and it's a pain in the butt to get the inner tube out and back in; and there are lots of thorns. Harbor Freight tire/wheel, about $23.

 

[Scrubcadet10]

Murphy's Law.

 

[Cusser]

Finally bit the bullet and ordered a replacement rear tire yesterday....where the leak showed externally did not go through, apparently air was working its way around to escape.

I needed a new lawn tractor tire (rear, 18x9.5-8 NHS), ordered one through Amazon; it arrived with clear tape holding on the shipping label, but so tight it deformed the tire. I had tried plenty of Slime, could not do a plug or patch as it appeared that the hole only went through to the inner plies, then leaked somewhere else.

Anyway, like most of us, I reviewed Google and YouTube to figure out how to replace the tire. Let's just say that it was a real challenge, both getting the old tire off, getting the new tire on, and setting the bead/filling with air, and did not go as readily as it did for the guys in the YouTube videos. Because the tire was deformed in shipping, I could not use the rope/strap technique to seat the bead, was fortunate to get that seated and filled with air.

I would say the process took almost 3 hours over two days, removed the old tire first day, the remainder the second.

If I need to ever do another one, I will consider a tire changer from Harbor Freight.
https://www.harborfreight.com/search?q=tire changer

 

[Scrubcadet10]

I have a Kawasaki Mule utility vehicle, tires are 22x9x10 and 22x11x10 rears... tires have always been a PITA to get off... almost ruined a wheel once... i found it's cheaper to go to my local tire shop that charges $10 a tire while i sit on a bench.

 

[Rivets]

Trick to anyone who trys to work with a deformed tire. Let it sit in the hot sun for a couple of hours or a bath of hot water. Rachet straps work better than the rope method, wider the better.