05/27/2026
Greetings on this seemingly first day of summer/thunderstormy evening. Things have been pretty busy here on the ranch these past few weeks.
Glad to say the heavy mower maintenance is largely done for the year (hopefully). The 2 big Jacobsen mowers were marooned in a flooded hangar and it took a couple of weeks for things to dry out enough to get them into the airport shop. So, things started on them about a month late. Both mowers had transmission gearboxes full of water to be dealt with. The second big Jake mower had the front deck in the 'down' position during the flood and so under water. I had to bar the deck to break it loose, so OK, now I know why I had built-up all those mower spindles several years ago. A few other bearings and some replaced metal on the deck and basically ready to roll.
Back to the first big Jake and ready to go through that one. Back in January I had rebuilt all the gauge wheel assemblies for the decks. Now all the deck bushings for those were replaced and the gauge wheels assemblies were then installed. And shazam! Along with another week of work, ready to roll!
These past couple of days were spend washing the 4 airport mowers. Everything is hydraulic and so, always oil on everything whether it leaks or not. And dirt. And grass, And dandelion fuzz. And about that time an oil leak and the collection of crap starts anew. 3 gallons of purple cleaner and 3,000psi of water pressure and things look pretty clean. Maybe now in my retired state of life, I should wash those things every year instead of twice a decade. I wonder if there's a steam cleaner in my future.... 😎
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