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| Wheel bearing replacement and new bushing for secateurs. © Eugene Brennan |
I
still have to put the mower gearbox back together after doing some dental
work on the gears' teeth. Not sure whether it'll work, but it was worth a
try. I got replacement bearings for the wheels yesterday from Amazon.
One of the bearings on the back axle had corroded after five years from
turning the mower on its side to hose it and remove caked-on grass.
Water getting into the bearing rusted it away totally. Anyway I'm going
to have to make some sort of protective shroud that'll slip onto the
axle and act like an umbrella when hosing. The old bearing, or rather
what was left of it, was really difficult to remove from its housing or
"sheath" as it's called in the parts description. Bearings are usually
put into housings using a bearing press and are a tight fit with a small
tolerance. But this one had also rusted into place and so was stubborn
and refused to come loose. Because the back of the sheath was tapered, I
couldn't tap the back of the bearing to push it out. So I had to grind a
narrow groove with a diamond burr, cracked the outer race (the thing
the balls run around in) at this point with a chisel and then was able
to use the corner of the chisel to get enough purchase to bend and snap a
chunk off the race. That reduced the force on the sheath allowing me to
prise the rest of the bearing race out. The new bearing was pressed
into place in the jaws of a vice, taking care to do it evenly.
Worn secateurs
The
pivot hole in one arm of the secateurs was worn, so the jaws didn't
move parallel to each other when closing, affecting cutting of thicker
branches. Rather than throw it out, I made a bushing ring from scrap
tube of a suitable diameter which reduced the hole size to what it was
originally, so the pivot bolt returned to being straight.