Anyone Else Want To Rant? Join In

I'm once again paying the price of my own laziness and procrastination.

If I shut my tractor off while it is hot, it will not start again until it cools down. I know what the problem is...I bought the part a while ago. I've just not installed it. After all...I'm retired. I have all the time in the world. I just don't cut it off until it's parked in the garage.

So I'm out mowing the South 40 this morning, and I notice it's starting to run hot. This happens when I let the grass get too long...it clings to the grill and air does not circulate. So I dismount to go brush it off and forget to turn the mower deck off first...I've never done that before. The safety stuff kicked in and the thing turned off.

So now I'm here typing this until the thing cools off and I can finish. This could take a couple of hours. Now that I've been screwed, I might just replace that part.

 

The stupid thing is I used to be a mower mechanic way back in the day. I've not worked on tractors but it's not that complicated. Tools I got. Motivation is on back order.

Regarding hay: out here everyone is on septic. The stuff gets tall and thick over the drain field. Sometimes you gotta drive real slow through it.

 

That stinks. You gotta hope that there's nothing that's frying the PCM, since the same 8 invalid codes are being thrown by the original unit and by the rebuilt one. That sure is a weird coincidence.

I replaced the BCM in my truck a while ago (Body Control Module.) That's the unit that lets you know if the seat belt's not buckled, that locks the doors when you put it in drive, that the security system runs through, etc. Actually I had to have the dealer do it, since the truck's remote had to be programmed to it. As it turned out, it did not fix the issue. Serves me right for being my own doctor. I complain about all this computer stuff, but we've gone from an era where hitting 100,000 was rare, and now it's a minimum expectation.

As an aside, it's a good thing that the PCM is going now and not after you put a rebuilt motor into it; otherwise, you'd be wondering if the new motor were having issues. I once replaced the timing belt in a friend's car, and when I started it up the oil pressure was low and the light came on. I thought I had done something wrong or that gunk had got into the oil pan. The next night I dropped the pan, inspected it and cleaned the pickup screen, and that did not fix it (this is all in the evening in my driveway after work.) I called her to tell her what was going on, and she said "That light has always been that way. You gotta rev the engine to make it go out." Needless to say, I was not happy.

 

We had a hot & rainy summer a few years ago. My neighbor's wife cut their grass with a push mower...it's over an acre. Between the heat and the rain she could not get out there to do it, and I noticed it was real tall & thick on the drain field. There was no way to get a push mower through it. I offered to drive my tractor over and cut it for them (they accepted), and in the meantime their push mower literally blew up...oil was coming out of the exhaust. I ended up cutting their grass for a little over a year, until he bought a Gravely zero turn.

His brother lives right across the right-of-way and he has a zero turn as well, even though he's got a relatively small yard. (I think his adult son uses it to make money on the side.) I've come out to the sound of mowers in my yard to see the two of them cutting my acreage...I have about 7 mowable acres. They knock it out in no time flat...way faster than my tractor & belly mower. I love living here...

 

I had too many aquariums as a kid to view colored gravel as something desirable.

 

I had a new gravel driveway done a few years ago. I wish I had realized I needed to spray immediately. I've done it once, and the dead grass and the root infrastructure remains. And now there's another crop of grass all over it.