Rebuilding Time of Year

Come winter time I slowly run out of big outdoor projects to work on.  The cold rolls in as well as the snow so when I am not shoveling and plowing I am not overly inclined to be out in the cold. With almost 300 gallons of oil that I have collected this past year I can fire off my furnace, heat the garage up to working temperature and away we go!  One of the most important rebuilds for the winter is my sickle mower.

Before removing the the main frame of the mower from Old Smokey I pulled the seven foot cutter bar off.  With the bar off I have time to work on it in a leisurely manner and not be rushing to get it back out to mow.  Truth be told this summer some of my repairs have been quick and not 100% done right.  To start off I am cleaning it all up and replacing all the bolts that hold the rock guards on.  Doing so will make it easier fixing and replacing the guards in the field.

Once I get the lower part of the cutter bar rebuilt I am gong to replace all of the teeth on the inner cutter bar with brand new serrated teeth and bolts instead of rivets.  The bolts to hold the teeth on are a special splined bolt with a lock washer so that they can't come loose when the machine is mowing.  I think that replacing all of the teeth is going to be the worst part because every single rivet needs to be ground off and punched out.  I have done two of the teeth this past summer and the remaining 27 teeth are going to be a slow job. 

As it progresses I will have another few pictures but this is not the most exciting of projects that I have tackled, but nonetheless it needs to be done.  If it is any indication of how boring this is my helper fell asleep within minutes!!

Until next time stay tuned and check back often.  We have been slow on the blog updates as life has been hectic but you can guarantee that we are still here chugging along.