Ride 'em cowboy!

(Photo by BobbaLew.)

Our new Country Clipper JAZee® SR215 zero-turn lawnmower (pictured above), arrived yesterday afternoon (Friday, May 14, 2010).
It's 48-inch cut, with a 20-horse single-cylinder Briggs & Stratton engine.
“Zero-turn” is a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so it can be spun on a dime. Zero-turns are becoming the norm, because they don't have to be set up for each mowing-pass.
Most commercial mowing businesses use zero-turns.
I had mowing to do, so I set out on it.
I pushed on the twin tiller-bars, and WHOA!
This thing was much quicker than our previous zero-turn, a 48-inch Husqvarna I traded.
My Husky was an 18-horse V-twin, but high grass could stall it.
I drove it slowly to avoid stalling it, but quicker than my old mower, a 38-inch John Deere riding mower we still have.
The Country Clipper promptly threw its rotor-belt.
I shut off and got down and looked at it.
The rotor-belt was no longer on its pulleys.
The mower has a rotor-belt tensioner, so I relieved it.
Repositioning the rotor-belt would take removal of a belt retainer with a 3/4-inch wrench.
I analyzed what appeared to be the belt routing, and put it all back together.
Later I noticed a diagram sticker on the cutting deck with the belt routing.
I inadvertently had the routing right.
Belt re-tensioned, I got back on and fired up.
Everything back to normal; I could continue mowing.
But easy does it; don't just attack the high grass. It could stall the motor, or worse yet re-throw the belt.
Easier said than done.
Ride 'em cowboy!
Mario Andretti on the lawn.
This thing would drift corners — slide the rear like a dirt-tracker.
It can go slowly, but the extent the tiller-bars are engaged is much less than my old Husky.
Mowing completed with no further drama.

• The “rotor-belt” is what drives the cutting blades.