$811.57

New motor. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

“I planned to do this in a year or two,” I said to my mower-man as I handed over my credit-card.
My 48-inch zero-turn lawnmower has a new motor. The old motor failed yet again. The spring activating an automatic compression-release broke a third time, making it very hard to start.
I had to jump it with my car.
Throw enough amps at it, and it would crank past the compression-stroke.
Repair woulda cost 400 smackaroos. Briggs & Stratton had identical motors on sale; $200 off = $616 instead of $800 or more.
The old motor was beginning to use oil. Not excessive, but I had to keep adding a little to top it up.
The old motor had also been abused. I hear it sometimes hammering its rod-bearing.
So we decided to swap the motor. That new motor has a two-year warranty.
My mower itself is built like a tank. “Like a GG-1,” I said to my mower-man, who like me is also a railfan.
The frame of Pennsy’s GG-1 railroad-locomotive is a gigantic bridge-truss.
Smack a bulldozer and it’s sent flying.
This actually happened years ago. A GG-1 passenger-express, doing 90 mph or so, didn’t derail, and was hardly damaged at all.
The ‘dozer was toast!
My new motor has “19” on it. I suppose that’s horsepower. My old motor said “20.”
19 horses on a 48-inch zero-turn ain’t much. I coulda switched to a gigantic mega-horsepower V-twin.
I’m not commercial. All I’m doing is mowing my lawn, maybe 3.1 acres. I don’t just charge into tall grass.
I had to farm out my mowing last week while my mower was in the shop.
I had a friend mow with his V-twin Ferris zero-turn. Took him four hours.
I don’t do the entire lawn in a single mow. About two hours per time; perhaps half the lawn.
People say I mow too much, but I enjoy it.
Mastering that zero-turn took a couple months before I no longer clobbered trees, or mowed flowers.
Now it’s fun.
And I no longer hafta jump it with my car, or add oil.
$811.57 socks my credit-card. But I will pay in full.
So far my monthly retirement income has been enough.

• A “zero-turn” lawnmower is a special design with separate drives to each drive-wheel, so can be spun on a dime. “Zero-turns” are becoming the norm, because they cut mowing time compared to a lawn-tractor, which has to be set up for each mowing-pass.
• “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, now gone. It was once the largest railroad in the world. It’s electrified line from Washington DC to New York City, previously the preserve of the mighty GG-1s, is now part of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.