Lawnmower killers

[Jackmannii]

I tried like hell to kill my lawnmower. I ran over something last year and bent the blade. Didn’t bother fixing it, so it ran with a noise like a descending 747 and kept stalling out in higher grass. What a great opportunity to buy a new mower, since there’s no way I’m going to be able to wrench off a frozen bolt and change the blade after at least 10 years of use.

Except the bolt came off without trouble, I replaced the blade and the mower is running fine now.

[Johnny_L.A]

I thought I killed another one about an hour ago.

I had a French drain put in the back yard to better drain water from under the house. We’ve been mowing on one side of it; and the other bit, on the other side under some trees and behind the trailer, we gave over to the ivy. Well, I decided I wanted to clean it out so I mowed over the ivy. I found a bizarre planter made of an old tire that ome previous owner thought was very clever and put four or five of them around. Mowed over by a large cedar. Hit something.

Now, I used to mow there before. I knew there were no stumps or rocks there. Maybe a branch? I avoided the area and mowed more ivy elsewhere. When I got back near the tree I hit the something again and the mower came to an abrupt stop. Lovely. I’ve just bent another shaft. I pulled on the starter rope and it didn’t budge. I thought I’d turn the mower to see if I could move the blade with a kick. That’s when I saw the half-inch copper tubing. Where the hell did that come from? I think maybe a workman found it under the house and tossed it next to the tree, where the ivy covered it.

The good news is that once I removed the tubing from the blade (and it was hooked around the chassis), the mower fired right up and ran perfectly well.

But I was vexed for a minute.

[johnpost]

there are yard areas you want to mow and those areas that you leave alone (or use a string trimmer on first).

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

I am glad to know I am not alone in my capacity as Murderer of Lawn Mowers.

We have cash flow problems and a busted mower. Maybe I’ll buy a new one, I said. No, said my wife, you will hire someone to do it for you with a mower that they provide. That will be a lot of money, I said, it’s cheaper to buy one. You will break it, she said, and then it won’t be cheaper, and …she was right…

[sara20]

@Johnny_L.A

Are any of you a lawnmower killer? This thread reminded me that I am.

When I bought this house, my friend left his fairly-new lawnmower for me. One day I found a 3" or 4" diameter stump where someone had cut down an arbor vitae along the fence line, and bent the crankshaft. I checked some prices, and found that repairing it would cost more than just buying a new Craftsman mower, which was $130 on sale at the time.

Not long after buying the new mower, I found another stump in an unexpected place. Bent the crankshaft. So now I have two broken mowers in the shed. Again, a new mower cost as much as a repair; so I bought a third.

Now, I’ve had a shortage of time for the past few years. It became convenient for me to just hire Felipe to mow the lawns. He and he crew do an excellent job, and they’re cheap. When the SO moved in, she motivated me to mow my own lawns. I took both mowers to a local shop. The newest one had been sitting and needed to be cleaned up and overhauled. New mowers became more expensive since the last time I bought one, and the shop has more reasonable rates than I’d found previously. Woohoo! Two functioning mowers! (I gave him the one that came with the house. He either recycled it, or repaired it and gave it to a needy person.)

About ten minutes into using one of the repaired mowers, I found a root in the yard. :smack: This is a root that I’d mowed over many times with no problem. This time… BANGCLATTERCLATTERCLATTER :rolleyes: After sitting over Winter, the other mower wouldn’t start.

Last month I took both mowers to the shop. I was told that modern gasoline goes bad very quickly, so the one mower just needed new fuel and a tune-up. The other one… Can you believe it? I hadn’t bent the crankshaft! :eek: A double sawbuck got me a new blade, installed.

This sort of thing never happened to me when I was growing up. But then, dad and I spend many days levelling the desert that was the back yard (after I’d spent my time after school pulling the tumbleweeds). Here, the ground isn’t level; and things seem to spring from the ground where you don’t want them or expect them. Why have I become a lawnmower killer? I don’t know. It’s a mystery; like ‘Why do birds insist on crashing into my car when I drive?’

How long did you leave the gas in it?

[Johnny_L.A]

Over Winter.

I did use fuel stabilizer, but it didn’t seem to work.

Incidentally, I finally got a chance to drain the fuel out of my bike. It was half water. I started it up and let it run for the amount of time it took to mow about half the yard. In a couple of weeks, I’ll actually have time to go for a ride.

[california_jobcase]

I killed two lawn mowers in two days, and they weren’t even mine. I was working for the local school district under a county employment program. The first one I hit a hidden concrete block, and the second I hit a big hidden stump. Bent the crank on one and snapped it on the other. They replaced the second with one the head maintenance guy had been saving- it was a Tecumseh. I didn’t kill it. They did, however, switch me over to weed eater operator, and it was a monster. It had a big 2 1/2 HP Tecumseh 2-stroke engine and was carried by latching it onto a pretty massive nylon vest.