My lawnmower stopped driving last week…
We had completely redesigned our garden over the summer using over 12 tons of soil to give us much more grass (easier to maintain than weeds!) so imagine my dismay this week when my rather heavy lawnmower stopped driving…..
The engine ran fine and it still cut the grass, if I pushed it! Ok, lets get the mower on the bench and have a look. First things first, take off the spark plug lead and tuck it out of the way. Why you ask? Well, I might want to rotate the blade and there is a tiny chance that this could cause an accidental start, not good if your holding the blade. Sure, it shouldn’t start with the ‘dead man’ switch activated but hey, it takes all of 2 seconds to pull off the spark plug lead, what’s to lose (apart from your finger if it does fire up…)?
Pull off the spark plug lead and tuck it away.
Next I found the cover plate that gives access to the drive gearbox which is usually at the rear of the machine near the bottom somewhere.
On this machine it was where the grass box usually sits. I levered out the plastic cover after scraping way the accumulated gunk.
And lo and behold there it is. A simple belt problem. drive belts can come off for various reasons and in this case I suspect it was when I hit a root that sticks up in my lawn that I really must sort out. Hitting stuff jolts the blade big time and the drive belt runs from the shaft that holds the blade, hit the blade hard enough and all sorts of things can happen!
Here it is, a simple fix to pop the belt back on.
I pulled the belt up and onto the pulley and rotated the blade slightly to pull the belt fully around the pulley. A repair that takes only seconds.
No getting out of mowing the lawn for me this week….
Stay well
Ian
