Getting it Done macgyver style sometimes

 I was always looking for a third arm when putting fresh blades on the rotaries in the morning .

 While getting some material ready for more deck guards for the 4300 D I spotted this clamp hanging on the wall . I gave it a try and it worked great . Sometimes it's looking around at what you have to make things work .

 Our new Tee surround mower had  shredded  the drive cable  today . The part was

ordered a few days ago but will take up to a week to get in .

 My Mcgyver repair  plus wrapped it afterwards with electrical tape  . Again stating the obvious of looking around at what you have and how things work to keep the gear going . I drill a hole in the handle catch and used mechanics wire to attach it back together . Our Tee surrounds I would say is the worst job on the course and having one mower down makes for a bad day for the crew .

After checking the new 4300D I noticed the newness has worn off with the staff . Some of the decks where getting pushed in towards the blades . I had some time to weld up more bedbars for deck guards . There working out so great on the other mower that I didn't hesitate to put them on the new machine .

Carlisle tire rapid destruction .

 This is what happens to these tires when they are over loaded with wet sand /soil and running an under inflated tire .
These are the tires found on the 4x6 and 4x2 turf Gators . The large rear ballon style tires .

The side walls break down rendering a perfectly treaded tire useless . All the fiber lines you see in the pics are totally seperated from the tire .

The tires are the suspension for the rear of this machine . 6 to 10 psi is all the air they need . I'm pretty sure the max pay load is 800 lbs including the operators . You may have to instruct the staff to look out for one another and point out when something doesn't look right . They should inform you the mechanic with this type of safety issue . Not only is it hard on the equipment it could cause the machine to roll over possibly injuring a fellow staff member . The staff do not understand that wet sand and soil weigh a lot more than stone and gravel with the exception of crusher run . They should be instructed to take half loads and make more trips or run trucksters  ( cushmans , pro gators. mdx.)designed to haul and dump the bigger loads . 

Tru Turf Roller- chain & sprocket change out

 Our roller was skipping really bad when switching directions .The drive gears as you can see above a worn down ,

 They should look more like these gears that keeps tension on the chain .

 The drum side didn't fair to well either . This drum gear is very expensive , We figured out that the operators are not letting the machine coast to a stop but using the redirection pedals as a brake snapping them back and forth . Not only is it hard on the gears but can compact the collars and leave spin marks on them . We are on a second set of gears now and many chains . I'm thinking there are under 300 hrs. on this machine .

 This gear set I found to be an amazing piece of technology . I'll try to explain it . The gear slides onto the shaft first see the center cog how it is beveled and has 2 shallow drill marks and one long one , the cog is also slotted so it will pinch onto the keyed shaft . You slide this cog on next . The amazing part is the the gear has threaded half hole as you see above and as you thread the Allen head bolt it draws the gear on pinching the cog to the shaft The last hole is threaded all the way through on both sides and locks everything together with a bolt . Took me a while to figure out how to get it of the first time . ( take the set bolt out and Allen head bolts and tap the gear towards the drum )

Keyed drum shaft .

 Double roller chain . This is the exact same count link side by side . The left is new and the right stretched . I'm amazed at how much this double rolled chain stretched a good inch . Also found this chain through Lawson's and should be able to replace it 3 times for a half the price of the dealer chain .

 Pick of new drive gear and chain .

This machine kicks up lots of sand at times and prefer to grease the chain with dry graphite so that the sand doesn't stick to it in an attempt to slow down wear up wear .

This is the chain I ordered . Will be interesting to see if it lasts longer than the OEM ones .

Chains not available anymore . I'll have to go the ebay  route like some of the techs are doing .

Toro 4300D No Electrical Power

Our new 4300  suddenly stopped and had lost all electrical power . I looked around and found a shorted power wire under the seat . The short caused the fuseable link to fry in a couple of spots.

 Tried to splice a wire in but no go . Didn't realize that the fuseable link was this actual wire . Back in the day fuseable links where noticeable by a bump in the wire .

After texting the dealer tech about my problem he suggested a few ideas .  This is the wire set coming off the starter the fuseable link wire feeds power to everything .

 I managed to splice it to the connector to get back to the shop . But later failed popping the 15 amp fuse .

To get us up and running I cut the connector on the starter side and put female connectors on the wire to clip back into the wiring harness by bypassing the fusable link with a regular piece of 12 gauge wire back to the starter . The line was protected by a fuse so figured if there was another issue it would blow the fuse again . The new warranty part part came the next day and the machine was only down for a few hours .