Mechanical and How-to

What I expected would be a one hour project turned into days, then weeks, then months. In this brief video I give a snapshot recap of my problems and efforts to put my mower back into service after working through a series of issues which began with idler pulley bearing failures but didn't stop there. A longer in depth video is planned to follow this one, to describe how I rebuilt and repainted the deck. Key points in the journey... An idler pulley bearing failed and shredded the belt. So I removed the deck from the mower. At first I hoped I would have to replace only that one part, but further examination revealed that the bearings in the other pulleys and the spindles were well worn and needed replacing as well. Then I noticed how bad the rust was on the sheet metal and decided that it needed to be stopped before it ruined the entire deck. There was quite a bit of preparing and conditioning required in order to perform the painting. The mounting bolts for the spindles were too long, so I had to cut the excess off. I created a custom lock guard for the deck hangers to prevent the deck from dismounting whenever I mow my berms or ditches and such - something that most people mowing flat lawns would never experience, but something that has been a problem for me for many years. After remounting the deck and installing the belt, the blades lost velocity then wouldn't spin at all. So I had to troubleshoot the belt and the power take off clutch. As I build my content library,, I am focusing first on quality of content and then secondly working to improve my production value. Thank you for watching my videos in the meantime. I hope that if you are interested in zero turn mowers that you will enjoy them. There are many other topics in which I am interested, but this is my starting point!

This is my 2nd Rumble video. I am so happy to say that I did not make the same technical error that I did on my 1st video. Instead, I made a new error. So, I am getting better at this, even if it doesn't look like it at first. This Toro riding mower has served me well for about 7 years. I used it to maintain about 10 acres of pasture initially, and pushed it quite hard. For the past 4 years it has been mowing an acre of regular neighborhood yard, but the wear and tear is catching up with it.

My very first Rumble video! Watch as I unbox and immediately deploy a brand new Ryobi 1/2 inch impact driver in a less-than-two-minute rapid review. Real, unscripted, one take and no outtakes. Regarding the project itself, It is front end suspension issues. My daughter called late at night telling me that she had extreme steering problems and heard popping and squeaking. Turns out that the ball joint In the lower driver's side control arm was having issues. At first I thought the ball joint was going bad, but it turns out that the mounting hole in the control arm was wallering out, and so the ball joint is sloshing around and about to pull out of the control arm. I had actually replaced the ball joint a few months ago, and the car was doing fine. There was the option of replacing the entire control arm, which is what most of the videos on YouTube on YouTube were about. In hindsight, that would have been the best thing for me to do. The ball joint cost around $25, while you can get the whole control arm assembly with new bushings and the ball joint already pressed into it, for about $40. Now I understand why it is better just to replace the entire control arm instead of the ball joined itself. It is much easier than dealing with a ball joint press, and evidently better with longer lasting results. I purchased the impact driver because I am tired of hand ratchets and breaker bars in taking care of my kids' cars and my own. In this case, we still need this old Mitsubishi Lancer to help us get around, and don't have the budget for a replacement vehicle. It should give plenty of opportunity for more fix-it videos. Hopefully this will be the start of good content creation to come. However, can you detect the technical snafu on this first-time recording?