Was going to use my B26 to lift some broken pine trees off the fence line but key was missing from gate lock. BIL and I went over in my RTV and looked for the key, couldn't find it so I Picked the lock and was going back to get my tractor when brother in law asked if I would help him grease up his lawnmower. While greasing the deck spindles, we discovered that the deck mounting bracket was almost completely broken off. So after completing the greasing, he drove it to my shop where we commenced to remove the deck anchor points and slide the deck out. I beat the bent L shaped bracket back in position on one side, tacked it with my Miller stick machine, then beat it in place on the other side and welded it all back together. While down there I noticed the other bracket was only welding with about 1 1/4" long tack welds, so I welded the other side up fully also. Then BIL said while we have it off, lets check the blades, so I flipped the deck upside down and the blade were about as dull as they could get, so I got my impact and removed the 3 blades. Got out my 4.5" grinder and sharpened all three blades up. While sharpening them, I noticed that where the lift fins bend up, they had worn a substantial groove in the blade where the bend transition started. I got the welding machine back out and put a bead of weld in the worn groove to make it back to original thickness. Finally painted the welded areas and put the deck back on. That 10 minute grease job turned into over 3 hours of work by the time we got it all back together. Now he is ready to mow grass just as soon as we get some growing in a month or so.
Maybe tomorrow I can get some seat time with the TLB removing the broken trees that we started to do today.