I think I'm going to get sick. Broke my MMM

[BRBurns]

Lat winter I totally rebuilt my MMM on my 4300. This spring it has worked great.

Well, today I was out mowing the yard and manged to run over some concrete I was trying to pull out of the dirt yesterday with chain wrapped around it. It Heard the deck hit something, bog the engine for a split second and then sounded fine. I rased the deck and backed off; I knew right away what I hit. I see the blade laying on the ground and a broken bolt that holds the blade. Ends up i twisted the blade (caught in the chain) broke the bolt, mushroomed the end of the shaft, and trashed the lower berring. I guess I'm lucky getting out of this one for $130ish. Since the chain caught the blade it didn't go flying into anything.

As for you asking to yourself "why didn't he see the chain and concrete?". It was right at an end. I stopped to move stuff out of my way. Backed up while turning and then went back forward while the hood blocked my view of the chain. Still very stupid.

Just sharing my pain.

 

[namesray]

sorry to hear you are having trouble. once at the golf course i use to work at, the boss just ordered a new zero turn mower=lastec articulator 72" cut=$20,000 worth! anyway when it arrived, he had to be the first one on it and he took off mowing right beside the maintenence shed in the high grass to "test" the new mowers capibilities. he didn't see the irrigation hose he told us weeks eariler to store there and run right through it, winding the hose up all through all 4 blades,:laughing: stalled the mower. after about 15 minutes he was up and running again. just came to my mind after reading your post. funny memory in my case. hope you get up and running real soon.

 

[fgross335_2210]

Reminds me of an experience I had years ago. In high school and college I had a hometown mowing service, which consisted of a JD212 Garden tractor and a pull trailer containing a push mower, weed wacker and a broom. I had my regular customers and every now and then someone along the route would flag me down and ask me for a one-time mow.

I was passing a yard with very tall grass and the owner stopped me. His mower had died, it had rained a lot and the yard looked like a jungle. I walked the lot and didn't see anything, and told him I could do it but would need to make 2 passes and it would be 1.5X normal cost. He said go ahead. I asked him again if there were any obstacles and he said 'nope all clear'.

The first pass went fine as I had the deck raised up. Second pass, was about halfway done when there was a loud noise and the entire tractor, engine, deck just stopped - totally killed! Tractor restarted fine but engaging the deck stalled the tractor. Looked underneath and found a long, large-diameter dog chain wrapped around all three blades and spindles! And the mess was tight too! I didn't have anything with me to cut or remove the chain. The landowner was no help and 'suddenly' remembered the dog chain he had kinda "''piled" in the area. Not sure how I missed it the first time, definitely found it on the second pass.

I had to run the machine back home (at 7MPH and of course I was halfway across town), remove the deck, remove the blades and then unwrap the chain. It made a mess of the blades, I swapped out with another set and I had to scrap those - big gouges and no longer straight. Fortunately 12 HP wasn't enough to damage the spindles.

I then went back and finished the job and that was the last time I picked up any one-time business.

Several years later the flywheel key sheared and I always wondered if the sudden stop had damaged the key. From what I recall we replaced the key and it ran fine after that.

Never a good experience when you hit something when mowing......