Let’s keep this short and just run over the timeline. No need to beat about the bush, even if that’s the sort of thing that I’ve been doing.
May 20th, 2025.
Having found a tree stump using our Craftsman Z5200 ‘zero’ turn lawnmower, the blade began impacting the inside of the deck.
We’d had a similar situation before, when the dear wife had found a 16lb tamper in long grass and bent the spindle.
$160 and a new spindle is on the way. It arrived just before we left for a long weekend’s vacation at Cumberland Mountain State Park.
May 27th, 2025.
The new spindle is installed and makes no difference at all. The deck is actually deformed. Great.
A few choices: a new deck ($700-ish), an ebay deck ($300-ish) or a cheap self-repair job.
Okay, Scrooge is going to do it himself.
May 28th, 2025.
Beat the crud out of the deck until the blade on the reinstalled old spindle (I’ll keep the new one as a spare) rotates freely. Get two pieces of 16-gauge sheet metal, drilled out and ready to go. Clamp them both to the beaten and defeated deck, and get to work.
I don’t have clecos, so crappy nuts and bolts will do, until they strip out because they’re not intended for this purpose. (Just for the record: using tools and equipment for things other than their intended purpose is normally how I get myself into these scrapes.)
From here, beat the sheet metal pieces until they more or less match the deck, using clamps to help out. Again, not exactly their intended purpose, but I use what I’ve got.
May 29th, 2025.
Once all the holes are drilled, take off the metal plates and clean up the deck, ready for installation.
When you run out of nuts and bolts because they keep stripping, simply go and get some more. Who needs the right tool anyway?
May 30th, 2025.
With a little bit of help from a ball pein hammer, finish the job of shaping the plates, then remove the plates and reinstall having sealed underneath and between them, again using nuts and bolts as makeshift clecos, but making the repair more permanent with rivets.
May 31st, 2025.
Everything is sealed, the seal is set, so sand it back, clean it up, and paint it, ready to go back into service.
Job done, right? No! It has to pass inspection!
June 5th, 2025.
You thought that was it? That means you missed the part when I mentioned how using equipment for purposes it was never designed or intended for is my M.O. for buggering things up in the first place.
This isn’t a lawnmower. It’s a brush clearing tree killer. It kills blackthorn or hawthorn – I’m not sure, but the thorns can be two inches long or more and they bloody hurt!
Tires don’t like them much, either.
I did not get pictures of removing the wheel. Imagine being stopped sideways on a slope and the jack sinking into the dirt. When the jack sinks a little, the mower slides a little further sideways. Into an electric fence.
Suffice it to say that I have a little experience with this kind of aggravation. It just needs a new inner tube to get punctured later and, what do you know, I have one available because I ordered a pair last time this happened.
Miracle of miracles, there’s almost enough room in the workshop to get this done without resorting to Saxon words, but the tire went flat at 13:20 and the repair was completed by 15:50.
June 11th, 2025.
And it’s not over yet.
A few years ago, we let our neighbor run cattle on our property. He also cut and bailed feed here too. Unfortunately, he fell into very poor health and passed away. Long story short, there’s barbed wire out there still.
How do I know?
Because if there’s a disaster waiting to happen, it won’t have long to wait while I’m around.
This one was easy, though. Put the front on ramps, crawl, under, cut the barbed wire clear of the blade nut. Remove the nut, remove the blade – gravity helps here – clear the wire from the blade and reinstall.
The Future?
It’s not done. Until I’ve mowed and cleared a ten-foot path around the perimeter, I can’t finish my fence, and since I don’t have the appropriate equipment, it’s me, the zero-turn mower, and the BCS sickle mower, when it can help out.
So now, on a Wednesday afternoon, I can only wonder what interesting challenge life will throw at me next. It’s been three weeks and three good reasons to put my native Saxon language to good use.
I hope you’re having more fun than me. Stay safe!
Categories: Lawnmower, Other Work, Work Around the Property
Andrew Wellington 
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