Good morning!!!!

[pennwalk]

Had a nice afternoon mowing the lawn at the farm Friday. I'm getting used to the zero turn. That is not to say I am good at it yet. That Briggs motor is definitely loud. Overall it cuts better.

I had my first tree ripened local peach yesterday. Man was it good. The taste of Summer.

My wife made the first Blueberry pie of the season. Yummm

It has been comical watching my wife battle the catbirds to keep them out of the blueberries. Hard to believe how smart those critters are. They have never been this bad before.

The corn at the farm is head high in places. When we get a little rain that stuff grows like crazy.

Hope the Summer is passing agreeably for everyone.

Chris

 

[daugen]

chocolate muffins are in the oven for church tomorrow. Ghiaradelli double chocolate into which I melted
two Hersheys dark chocolate bars for some added goo. Sure makes cleaning the bowl and utensils a mess, gooey is gooey.

starting to smell good...
sniff, can you smell the chocolate?

Chris, melt in your mouth sweetness even if it goobers up your chin

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Buckeye, Ring cannot be adjusted, it's on a custom fixed mount I made.
.

Use a bigger hammer.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Got the ZT hydro drained, new filters installed, and new oil going in. The kit came with 5 qts 20w50, 2 filters, and a pump with screw in adapter to fill. The problem is the oil is so thick it’s slow to drain down in the transmission. Directions said don’t change over 90°, but looks like don’t do it at 68° either. YouTube videos said this would be the case. So I punted on the pump, because after about 3 pumps it would start coming out the overflow, and now just dumping in the reservoir which is piped to each side. First bottle I dumped in drained real fast, then I remembered the fill plugs were out, so most of it just ran out. Looks like it might take all night to drain down.

 

[daugen]

breathe deeply

yes, the little runty one is mine.
Cook's quality control

 

[Dftodd]

View attachment 753434
Got the ZT hydro drained, new filters installed, and new oil going in. The kit came with 5 qts 20w50, 2 filters, and a pump with screw in adapter to fill. The problem is the oil is so thick it’s slow to drain down in the transmission. Directions said don’t change over 90°, but looks like don’t do it at 68° either. YouTube videos said this would be the case. So I punted on the pump, because after about 3 pumps it would start coming out the overflow, and now just dumping in the reservoir which is piped to each side. First bottle I dumped in drained real fast, then I remembered the fill plugs were out, so most of it just ran out. Looks like it might take all night to drain down.

I ran into that issue when I serviced mine. Mine has an over flow jug with 2- 1/4"od lines out of the bottom going to each side of the transaxle.

Great for monitoring fluid level to the transaxle. Not so great filling them back up after servicing.

I think it took about an hour to fill up both sides. Add some, play a game on my phone. Check level. Add some more. Play another level. Check.... add..... cruise a forum or two.... Add some more oil......

 

[Fuddy1952]

breathe deeply

yes, the little runty one is mine.
Cook's quality control

I'm on the way darn it!

 

[two_bit_score]

wow, 105 years old! Glad she got her hydration back. We need our water.

107F is a quick way to lose your hydration.

We enjoyed our trip to the Ice skating rink. Us 2 adults had no big "wipe outs". His kid went down hard a few times. My kid looked like a natural right off the bat. I did have to take maybe 3 breaks for about 5 minutes each, in the whole 2 hours. Nice and cool, I even took off my long sleeve heavy cotton shirt, and got by with just a short sleeve thin button down no iron shirt. When we came out of the ice rink, it was 105F

Drove back the hour home, and didn't do much the rest of the day. 'puter time.

I recall an ice rink in Austin in a shopping center. Where was the one you went to? Never was much of an ice skater but it was cool in there on a hot day. The Galleria rink in Houston was a favorite of my kids back in the day.

 

[daugen]

I'm on the way darn it!

sorry Fuddy, too late.
I had the little one, yum, maybe a little overdone because it was small. But very chocolatey.
Split the rest between a plate for folks after church, and also a half a dozen to go baggies.
I've never had a muffin left on the plate yet...though I do ask folks to eat it outside to keep the ants out.

I'm going to make a presentation tomorrow on behalf of church Trustees about preserving that amazing old document I found in the safe deposit box.
Next time I see it I will carefully unfold it, will have four weights ready, take a pic, and then carefully refold it and put it in gallon baggie which I think will just fit.
Not sure it's paper, not sure if parchment, skin, whatever but I do know keeping it folded in quarters for 300 years is not a great idea.
Better late than never to fix this.

neighbor gave me half a home made cherry pie. Ahhhhhhhh. Her crust is awful though, not like I'd tell her that.
So I put two chocolate muffins aside to give her when returning the pie plate. Even a bad cherry pie is mighty good assuming it's not
that gelatinous mess you get with commercial pies. Guar gum. There's stuff in that pie you could probably grease your bearings with...

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I ran into that issue when I serviced mine. Mine has an over flow jug with 2- 1/4"od lines out of the bottom going to each side of the transaxle.

Great for monitoring fluid level to the transaxle. Not so great filling them back up after servicing.

I think it took about an hour to fill up both sides. Add some, play a game on my phone. Check level. Add some more. Play another level. Check.... add..... cruise a forum or two.... Add some more oil......

Yes, I sat awhile on porch, went back to barn and it had filled very little. So I took the fill plug back out, and it drained right down without coming out the open fill hole, until it’s full. Turns out it couldn’t get the air out. So it really didn’t take too long once I figured that out. The pump on the other hand didn’t work as well. Then I put it on Jack stands to purge air per instructions. Took it for a test spin.

 

[Buppies]

Great day on beach wind got up we really enjoyed maybe one more shot in the morning then back home. I think I’m getting near the end of working full time at almost 69 time I think

 

[daugen]

you guys are worrying me about this trans oil change, I'm doing that next week. Two different drain plugs. 5 quarts.
And yes, open the fill hole first. Had to order a new drain pan big enough to hold that.
Normally I suck oil out of engines with a good quality oil sucker. But this is definitely a gravity operation. And I have to pull the mower out which means I need some help.
I have a young friend for that.

my thought was with residential use just mowing lawns that once this first trans oil change and trans filter is changed, I bet this mower could go a long time
before it needs it again. Motor oil show a 50 hour interval on Kawasaki, with synthetic oil and pressure lube that seems a little light. 50 hours or one season. I changed at 49.

Buppies, those days on the beach under that umbrella shows you what's really important any more. Good health and contentment.

 

[Buppies]

Some know what is driving this bus getting more than I can do and work to

 

[daugen]

when I think of the millions of slightly used spark plugs thrown in our country's land fills, it begs the question:
have any of you found any benefit whatsoever to changing spark plugs on low hour (under 100) motors?
If you hire a service they change the plugs no matter what. I do my own maintenance but I have friends that throw out plugs every year after
can't be more than 50 hours of use.

don't plugs last hundreds of hours today? Even plain plugs, not platinum or fancy conductors.
My favorite spark plugs were in my Super A. They felt like they weighed a pound apiece, big heavy duty plugs. I bet they were made to run
many years. Of course back then folks cleaned their plugs. That seems to be a dying art.
do you remember the JC Whitney spark plug cleaners?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I don’t change plugs unless necessary.

Drew, find a YouTube video for your model hydro change.

 

[newbury]

There was one property near old rag awhile back that looked interesting.
Kind of put off land shopping for awhile. My cousin, who owned my grandfathers farm in Ohio passed away awhile back. The estate executor is going to auction the property and I want to bid on it. He has 2 Tracts, both have been in our family since Ohio started selling land with the NW ordinance of 1788. They would be a timber investment.

In my wife's family the executor(s) always gave the "family" first bid at a decently discounted price. We got about 150 acres of timberland (fresh cut) that way.

 

[Thomas]

Thomas, I’ll have to bring a lightning bug in for the kitten.

You'll be busy picking things up.

 

[Thomas]

and I kept having to retrieve them. If I only had understood she was training me to play fetch.

 

[Thomas]

breathe deeply

yes, the little runty one is mine.
Cook's quality control

There's 2 missing....I wonder what could have happen to them.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

when I think of the millions of slightly used spark plugs thrown in our country's land fills, it begs the question:
have any of you found any benefit whatsoever to changing spark plugs on low hour (under 100) motors?
If you hire a service they change the plugs no matter what. I do my own maintenance but I have friends that throw out plugs every year after
can't be more than 50 hours of use.

don't plugs last hundreds of hours today? Even plain plugs, not platinum or fancy conductors.
My favorite spark plugs were in my Super A. They felt like they weighed a pound apiece, big heavy duty plugs. I bet they were made to run
many years. Of course back then folks cleaned their plugs. That seems to be a dying art.
do you remember the JC Whitney spark plug cleaners?

My '95 Craftsman garden tractor still has the original plugs in both cylinders. Probably 1500 hours on them. The Cub Cadet string trimmer still has its original plug too! That's almost 6 years old, heavy abusive use.... wore out 2 cutter heads.

Like BEF said, change if needed... (AKA -- no worky anymore)