The Seinfeld thread (or the thread about nothing)

[Droo78]

Glad you are on the mend.  Those infections can get serious.

Thank you. I took my last antibiotics Monday. Today, I am feeling great. I hope it continues.

That is GREAT news, Jim!!

[Ordinaryshaver]

Great news all y'all!

[Bird Lives]

Glad you are on the mend.  Those infections can get serious.

Thank you. I took my last antibiotics Monday. Today, I am feeling great. I hope it continues.

Great News!!  I was worrying about this. I hope it continues too!!!!

[Wchnu]

I think I can finally get back to posting more!! Woo

[GAW9576]

It took me 12 hrs to mow the lawn today. Well a few of that was actually mowing the lawn the rest was tearing apart the lawn mower to fix the steering because the gear teath were wearing out and the steering kept getting stuck when they didn't mesh right. When I finally got done I was to tired to even enjoy a good shave. I sure hope tomorrow is a better day.

[ShadowsDad]

You had mower problems too?

I mowed over a small stump, but raised the mower deck so that I wouldn't hit it. You can guess what happened. I hit the thing and from then on I only had 2 blades rather than 3. On my second pass around I saw blade #3 laying there. I have to jack it up and check underneath to see what I did to it. Hopefully it's just the nut that holds it on that came off (it entered another dimension as lost parts often do). It would be nice if all I have to do is find a new nut. My concern is that the spindle is destroyed.

Today was the only match of the month and I'm missing it right now, but I must mow the lawn.

[GAW9576]

You had mower problems too?

I mowed over a small stump, but raised the mower deck so that I wouldn't hit it. You can guess what happened. I hit the thing and from then on I only had 2 blades rather than 3. On my second pass around I saw blade #3 laying there. I have to jack it up and check underneath to see what I did to it. Hopefully it's just the nut that holds it on that came off (it entered another dimension as lost parts often do). It would be nice if all I have to do is find a new nut. My concern is that the spindle is destroyed.

Today was the only match of the month and I'm missing it right now, but I must mow the lawn.

Just be careful working under there. Do you have jack stands?

I found out that I didn't need to remove the mower deck on mine to do the fix. What a pain. My mower deck is not easy to remove.

[ShadowsDad]

I use a honkin' huge pneumatic cylinder to lift it. It can lift something like 3000#. Then yes, I use jack stands, and check them to make sure they're doing what they need to, and still keep the air pressure on the cylinder the entire time.

After I disassembled the spindle I found out that it was only the bolt that I lost. All that labor... I could have diagnosed it much faster by just using a blade bolt from one of the other spindles to see what was what. Clearly I don't do this stuff every day. But I got there eventually.

So I called the local guy for the part. Closed for the weekend. Then I called someone 30 miles away and was told they had it. I bought 2 and commented that it looked too small. Sure enough, too small. Now I can't do anything until Monday.

But it's a nice design. It's a commercial mower. Huge tension on the drive belt so that it doesn't slip. My neighbor has commented about the grass my mower can handle that his wouldn't be able to, his belt would slip. What does give to prevent damage is the bolt that holds the blades on. Easy to replace. Now that I know I'll keep a few extra on hand. I use my mower as a very light duty bush hog. This time I wasn't doing that however. Go figure.

[GAW9576]

I use a honkin' huge pneumatic cylinder to lift it. It can lift something like 3000#. Then yes, I use jack stands, and check them to make sure they're doing what they need to,  and still keep the air pressure on the cylinder the entire time.

After I disassembled the spindle I found out that it was only the bolt that I lost. All that labor... I could have diagnosed it much faster by just using a blade bolt from one of the other spindles to see what was what. Clearly I don't do this stuff every day. But I got there eventually.

So I called the local guy for the part. Closed for the weekend. Then I called someone 30 miles away and was told they had it. I bought 2 and commented that it looked too small. Sure enough, too small. Now I can't do anything until Monday.

But it's a nice design. It's a commercial mower. Huge tension on the drive belt so that it doesn't slip. My neighbor has commented about the grass my mower can handle that his wouldn't be able to, his belt would slip. What does give to prevent damage is the bolt that holds the blades on. Easy to replace. Now that I know I'll keep a few extra on hand. I use my mower as a very light duty bush hog. This time I wasn't doing that however. Go figure.

About half way through the wotk I did on mine I figured out that I didn't actually need to remove the mower deck. My deck is not easy to remove so that was a bit irritating. The first fix I tried Jimmy rigging didn't work. The second worked very well. However when I got it mostly back together I noticed that the steering wheel was turned really far but the wheels were straight. That would drive me nuts every time I mow the lawn for the rest of the time I own the mower. So at least this time I knew exactly what to do to correct it. It was about 20 minutes extra work but it was worth not having a misaligned wheel. I don't do this stuff all the time but I have had to do a lot more in the last few years.

[Flintstone]

As you guys are talking about fixing mowers and learning things, I've recently learned a lot more about electricity. I should mention that I started out in school as an electrical engineer and had such trouble with simple concepts and properly wiring my bread-boards, that I moved over to computer science. So here's what I learned....if you have a faulty neutral line coming from your transformer, or if your transformer is overloaded, then current will flow through the neutral and even on your ground lines in your house. The really cool thing is if you throw your breaker, you still get current because a breaker stops the "hot" line, it doesn't do anything for the neutral because that's not supposed to have electricity running through it.

Here's my short story of how I discovered this: we recently (about 6 months ago) bought a house with an in-ground pool. The pool has a pool light. We were getting shocked (tingled really) whenever we were in the pool and would grab the brick and concrete decking on the side of the pool. I turned off the breaker to the pool and discovered that I could measure with my multimeter anywhere from 3 to 6 volts (sometimes as much as 14) depending on the time of day -- if the Air conditioners (and I have two large condensing/fan units) were running it was higher, if I powered off the main breaker I could lower it to 3 volts. I thought it was stray voltage in the ground and the electricity was being caught by the rebar in the concrete and then transferring to the pool. Got a really good and seasoned electrician (40 years of experience, started apprenticing at 15). He discovered that the pool light was energizing the water even with the breaker off, because electricity would flow through the house and wiring even when he pulled the power company's meter off.

So we completely disconnected the pool light from any electricity, and now the pool reads zero; but the power company is fighting me over doing a load test on Transformer and even just a thorough diagnostic. But that's another story. At least we can use the pool, and I'm now making sure my electronics are on Uninterruptible Power Supplies and Conditioners so that they don't have the lifespan of a fruit fly from the "dirty" power. The fight with the power company will continue, as will the fight with the water company. My neighbor broke a pipe of some sort doing yard work and has water coming up out of the ground, I'm downhill from him and the water has saturated my yard and is soaking into my fence. I contacted the water company, and since it isn't affecting anyone's water pressure (which is weird) and because they will have to turn off the water to the whole town to fix it and put us on a boil water advisory when they do, they are dragging their feet to fix it (it's been over 2 weeks now).

There are some real pluses to living in a VERY small town in a rural part of Louisiana; but infrastructure is not one of them. We don't pay much for electricity, water, sewage, trash pick up or internet services; but that's because we don't get much either. On the plus side, I've had to learn a lot more and become a lot more self-sufficient. The electrician was one of the few who would make the trip out to help me, and I had to pay for his travel time (which I totally understand), which given his hourly rate, cost me another $200 on top of his labor charge for the work.

Okay, I think I've vented enough....thanks for listening.....I think I'll go watch some old episodes of Green Acres and marvel at how similar my life is to that show.