Zen and the Art Of Lawnmower Maintenance

When do you try to repair something? When do you let it go?

My grandparents were hoarders. My mother dated a few hoarders. I've been surrounded, all my life, by stuff, stuff, stuff. The pictures in my story about my grandfather's ashes show how my family has accumulated junk on an industrial scale.

Over the past few years I've been embracing minimalism. I have enough to write about the subject that I'll take a chance on a new Steemit tag and tell you all about minimalism in the future. But for today it's enough to understand that I love throwing things away the way other people love to shop.

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Today, though, I've got this lawnmower.

We need it to cut the grass at our rental property. We bought it used, and it's lasted a season and a half. It always shook a bit, which made the operation uncomfortable. It's chopped through a lot of heavy brush and hit a few rocks. I figured the crankshaft was probably bent, and since a mower with a bent crankshaft is living on borrowed time, I hadn't tried to replace the blade.

Last week the shaking was a lot worse. The thing was vibrating so hard that it felt like my arms were getting electrocuted. There's a bar above the handle that you have to hold down to keep the engine running. It's a safety feature: walk away from the mower and it turns off. But it was so painful to hold it down that I tied it in place with twine.

It was stalling intermittently. It would sputter, then roar back into life. I was within ten minutes of finishing the yard, and we had guests coming in an hour. Of course this is when it died. I still had an unsightly wild patch in the middle of a neatly trimmed field. I could just imagine our AirBnB ratings dropping. "A nice house, but points off for sloppy gardening."

The Wife was busy cleaning the house and I couldn't let her down.

I'm no mechanic, but I know that a gasoline engine needs three things to operate: fuel, air, and spark. I added some gas, cleaned out the air filter, and scraped some of the rust off the spart plug wire. I did all this with the only tool I had on me, which was my pipe smoking tool.

None of it worked. My shoulder was getting tired from pulling on the starter cord.

The engine housing was especially loose. A couple of the bolts had shaken themselves out, and the thing was probably not too far from utter disintegration. I noticed that the spark plug wire had slid away from the part of housing it was meant to pass through. It was still plugged in, just twisted strangely. I fiddled with it and discovered that it made the mower run - for about 90 seconds. I couldn't find a way to hold it in place and didn't know why it mattered, but I finished the lawn by fiddling, starting, running until it stalled, and then repeating.

I wanted to drop the mower off at the dump on the way home, but we hit traffic and the dump was closed by the time we got there. So now we were stuck with this piece of junk stinking up the Prius with gas and oil fumes. My anti-hoarding anxiety kicked into high gear. The last thing I wanted was an old mower hanging around while we went shopping for a new one.

"Maybe you can fix it," the Wife said. "It's only got to get through another ten weeks."

"Just get a new one."

"Oh sure, I'll just drop another $200. And you'll still have to put it together, you know."

I grumbled and stewed and then figured why the hell not? I had a set of wrenches. How hard could it be?

My mechanical autopsy revealed the source of the problem. There were several bolts missing from the housing. This had allowed the spark plug wire to shake loose and work itself against the sharp metal edge until it cut through the insulation. The mower stalled when the metal wire shorted against the engine block. Fortunately it hadn't cut all the way through. I wrapped it up in electrical tape and tucked it back into place.

Meanwhile, the blade was in a frightful state, with one end twisted and bent double at the tip. It was amazing it still cut grass at all. The bolt that held the blade it in place was bent, too, which reinforced my concerns about the crankshaft. But I was able to wedge a piece of wood against the blade and work the bolt free.

Yes, silly. I disconnected the spark plug first. That's why I still have all my fingers.

But I'd made a huge mess in the driveway. The Wife's not bothered by things like this but I wanted it the hell out of here. I told her, "This piece of junk's not going to run again, but if you want me to prove it to you, you'll have to buy a new blade and a few new bolts."

She went and bought the stuff. We're each stubborn in our own way. It's kind of like compatibility, I guess. Anyway, it's worked for 20 years.

When she got back I had another challenge: the blade she found was a generic replacement, and the holes didn't line up to the mower's pegs. They were so close that I hadn't noticed the difference until I unwrapped the damn thing, so now we couldn't return it. I wasn't about to admit my mistake, so I took our hand drill and expanded the holes. Just a little. This is where I came closest to injuring myself, as I don't have a proper vice to hold the blade steady. I had to drill it out with one hand while holding it against a log with the other. What's the worst that could happen? I thought. Besides, I've cheated death so many times he won't let me play.

There were sparks and metal shavings and a bit of smoke, and one close call when it slipped. Maybe two. Eye protection wasn't worn, but I did have my glasses on.

The blade went on. The bolts fit. The wire held tight in its channel.

Holy guacamole! The old piece of junk started right up.

It didn't shake, either. Turns out the crankshaft is just fine.

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What's the point? I'm not sure. 1000+ words about fixing a lawn-mower. If you've read this far, you're welcome.

I guess maybe the point is: something stops working, maybe it's worth taking it apart before you throw it away. Even if you've never done it before, you just might be able to put it back together again.

And don't get too upset if you can't make it to the dump in time. And listen to your wife.

And make sure you disconnect that spark plug before you get anywhere near the blade.

That last one, most of all.

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This post gets a shout out to @bucho who posted a review of Robert Pirsig's classic book earlier today, and left me thinking there might be room for an amateur mechanic story on here.