73 and cloudy @ 13:45 ... It's apparently been raining on and off this morning ... spotty showers. Was supposed to clear up this afternoon and get sunny ... doesn't look like it's happening so far. Spent most of yesterday afternoon working on the lawn ... cut the upper front yard with the Kubota first and then mowed all around the house with the Simplicity. Then windrow'ed what the wife had cut on the lower front yard the day before ... and then did the same for the upper front yard I had cut earlier ... about the time I was finishing that she got home from work with dinner. After I ate I hooked up the Trac Vac and she started picking up the windrows ... it got dark and I ended up having to pull out the magnetic light bar and mount it so she could see what she was trying to pickup. Worked up in the shed until about 04:00 ... pulled the gearbox on the Milwaukee angle grinder apart ... the ring and pinion gears were both dry as bone ... no obvious metal flakes or chips, but some of the grease (which is yellowish) was discolored (blackish) ... the gears appeared to be in decent shape (without having new ones to compare them to), so I took a small screwdriver, a pick/probe, and paper towel and dug out as much of residual grease that was in the housing as I could and repacked it with Milwaukee "Type Y" grease and put it back together. I then pulled the plastic covers on the motor and checked the brushes ... they looked to be better than 50%, so I put that back together and gave it a test drive ... sounds way, way better ... This is easy enough to do - no small parts came flying out when I took it apart - that it ought to probably be done on a more regular basis (yearly) if the tool gets a lot of heavy use. The only possible hazard I saw was the needle bearings for the ring gear shaft - have to be careful that they stay where they are supposed to ... but they don't seem inclined to wander as they are covered with grease anyways. Reassembled the filter and swirl ring for the (China ?) filter/regulator for the plasma ... that ended up being a bit of a challenge, as pieces flew when I originally took it apart and I couldn't find a manual for it. Also cleaned out and installed the filter screen for the Schrader-Bellows air filter that I had missed installing when I originally reassembled it. Had a little plastic bin that all my hex keys had gotten tossed into for cleaning a number of years ago ... went thru that and wiped them all down with a rag and the Murphy's Oil Soap/water solution that I use for cleaning. Still need to hit them all with some fine steel wool to remove any rust corrosion and then coat them with a little mineral oil. Last thing I worked on before I called it a day was an old Kal Equip vacuum/fuel pump pressure gauge. I had three of these that I purchased back when I was around 20 years old to set the carbs on my Yamaha XS750SF Special. The case had some rust and corrosion where the paint was lifting and the plastic "glass" was covered with paint overspray. I used some Duplicolor Grease and Wax Remover and a rag to clean off the overspray on the "glass" and then took it apart and wire wheeled/steelwooled/sanded the case to remove the rust in preparation of repainting it. Got most of the way there and then decided it would probably be a good winter project ... so I bagged it up and stuck it in the tool chest. More cleaning and putting things away on the menu for today.