GardenKit

Yet another ride on mower collected last week. I am a bit pushed for time in the run up to a few days off, so I was straight in. There was a broken belt tied to the grass box handle, so off with the deck. A good wash and an inspection. A list soon developed, blades very worn, all remaining belts badly worn, air filter completely clogged, very black oil etc. So parts ordered and fitted, complete service, loose paint removed from deck, rust treated, repainted, refitted. Body work polished, tyres blacked. Then I went to fill out the job card. It read " replace broken belt only- no service"

Cool. Let us know if it fits and works although I think its a pretty safe bet it will.

Its possible that the complete blade and boss assembly from a new machine may fit, but without trying it I could not be sure. It does not appear on the IPL as an option. Blades and bosses are not as interchangeable as many may think. The distance of the blade tip from the edge of the deck is critical for performance.

Exactly, well put!

A few things I would check Make sure that cam spindle (item 6) is correctly set into the housing (item 1). if its loose then the cam teeth may be slipping against the pinion (item 5) Ensure that the bottom plate (item 11) is on the right way up and not distorted. If its wrong it can allow the blades to slip off the edges of the cam. But the most likely cause is damage to the clutch drum/pinion (item 5) when fitting. If the drum edge was tapped, rather than the pinion shaft when driving it into place its possible that the weld between the pinion and drum has fractured. The pinion will still stay sort of riveted to the drum, and may drive after a fashion, but slip under load. Worth a check.

The problem with that Beau, is that the blade can spin and become loose. The pegs are there for a reason. I would never send a mower out with a broken boss, but do see plenty come in with broken pegs but the blade is still tight and the owner is blissfully unaware. I also get them come in with a loose blade and broken pegs following impact. There are others (and later Stiga's) which have pegless bosses but the blade has friction washers each side and is clamped tight. As you said, these are better because they just slip. Yours, without the pegs is just a metal to metal contact.

Glad to see you got the broken bolt out OK Beau. It broke because at some time it has been overtightened. You can see in the picture that the bolt is slightly tapered towards the break, this shows that it had stretched when over torqued. It may have stayed intact until the impact damage that sheared off the two drive pegs on the blade boss. The blade could then have self tightened a little more under impact and broken. Equally well, with the drive pegs missing the blade could have spun anti-clockwise under deceleration and loosened the bolt. The pegs are designed to shear under impact and prevent the crank from bending. Broken bosses MUST be replaced as soon as the pegs are broken for safety reasons. The correct torque is 40NM. Barrie. By the way Beau, the electric height adjuster for the Villa will be sent to Mr D tomorrow.

Thanks Mike, your input is very welcome. it maybe just your 2 pence worth, but its worth more like 10 pence to me!

Totally agree with you there Eddie. I have now changed many hundreds of machines to Aspen and most go without any problems. To be honest the diaphragms give very little trouble unless they were bad prior to the switch. Its the fuel lines that give the most problem but it does tend to be only some materials that suffer. The 038 will have the old style black rubber pipe, and to be honest, this material is attacked by pump petrol and needs regular changing even if never running on Aspen. But they can shrink, just as Spud says, when the petrol is removed. It is not the Aspen shrinking them, its just that they have been ruined by petrol. The green synthetic hoses on some of the newer kit are perfectly OK, and in general machines with Tygon hose will not suffer either. I have a high regard for Tanaka machines and have sold thousands over the years, but I know that I have to change the pipes and grommets when converting these from petrol to Aspen, or they will start to leak after a few weeks, but it only takes a few minutes and costs only a few pence to do. But the same machines run on Aspen from new will never need new hoses.

The post from Mike H is very interesting and clears up a few issues. For the last 3 months I have spent several hours most nights adding content and pages to my newish website. There is still a long way to go, but it does seem to be working quite well and seems to appear quite well on google. The problem when writing the metatags is to think of the keywords and incorporate them in a short phrase of less than 155 characters. You have to not only incorporate keywords that you would use yourself, but also try to think as others might. An example is that I have a include words such a 'tanaka service dealer in devon" but had not thought that other folk may use different terms such as 'tanaka service agent devon". its just because I never use the term "agent" myself. So now I am rewriting pages to include the word 'agent wherever possible. So far I reckon I have spent over 200 hours on writing this site and I am only partway there. Garden Kit | Homepage | Garden Machinery

I totally agree with you there Pete, but it is getting increasingly difficult to judge the quality of a product from its country of origin. Many reputable, quality companies are now building their machines (or components) in China, but the quality has not suffered at all. This is because they are building their machines in china as opposed to having their machines built in China These major brands have their own facilities in China, using Chinese labour but with Western management and standards, so no loss in quality but a decrease in cost of production. There is nothing wrong with seeing the 'made in PRC' badge on this kit, it is very good stuff. But others are having their kit made in China by a Chinese Manufacturer and this is where the problem lies. The Chinese will, it seems, make almost anything and at various quality levels. But it seems to me that even their best is not quite good enough. I know someone who has a lot of kit made in China and badged with his own brand name. He has a constant struggle to get the standards up, and they easily slip back when he eases the pressure off. And the communication is a massive problem apparently. To be fair, his kit is good value for money and fully backed by a dealer network in the UK with full spares back up. But it is still what it is. The sad thing is that anything seen to be made in China is now classed as second rate which is simply not fair.

But doesn't the mower have a tracking system?

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I run a 12 plate MWB Med roof Transit 280 with 125ps and really cant fault it except for the occasional bout of diesel knock when the wiring loom connectors dry out. That is a bit of a pain when it has to go in for sorting on the diagnostics. What I like about it is that the FWD gives a low rear sill height which keeps the angle of the loading ramps down, and there is a full 54" between the arches which lets me get most mowers up to 48" in. Even the Cub Cadet 50" goes in but with a slight negative clearance requiring an entry speed of around 5mph:biggrin: I find the MWB just about manageable in most domestic driveways, I know if I went to LWB there would be a lot of properties that I could not turn round in the drive with a LWB, meaning I would have to load on the road.

I could not agree more. Its only £100 extra for the GX which is much, much better than the domestic GC engine. I only ever sell the GX powered model, can't really understand why the GC one is still in the price list. The Major 4S will outperform the Minor when the going gets tough. On single branches of around 45mm base diameter there would be little difference in performance, but the extra power of the Major will facilitate material up to 55mm. The wider inlet makes it easier to 'fold' the side branches when pushing in a large branch, and the extra 8 blades help when shredding multiple stems.

I do. Pop in and have a look at it.

You are, of course quite right Pike. We have been trading just about the same as you, and just like you, we have some absolutely marvellous customers, in fact I reckon 20% are brilliant, but 20% of the rest are absolute pratts. The rest are just perfectly normal. But we can't tell interesting tales about nice people who do everything right and understand everything we tell them!

Classic Mr Pike! This 'unfit for purpose' statement always amuses me. Its always used by someone who spends too much time listening to others and who is usually unfit for much purpose themselves. They think by quoting this much overused phrase that they will get us scared into thinking they are some sort of legal eagle, but it does not work with me. Any machine sold through the specialist independent dealer network is of good quality and, as there are already many satisfied users, is clearly quite fit for purpose it was designed for. Of course, it could be that its not fit for the purpose they are using it for, but that is their problem.

I remember watching that when it was first screened!

Nah, at that point I take them to the door and ask which car is theirs!

One that SHINES IN NEIGHBOURS windows Jon.:lol:

It can be frustrating, being a dealer, and having to get sense out of some customers. This little story is quite typical of one we get quite often. Customer " I need the main drive belt for my ride on mower" Me "Which drive belt would that be then" Customer " are there two then?" Me " sometimes more, which one do you need" Customer "not sure now, but like I said, the main one" Me " so is it the transmission that does not work or the blades?" Customer "uhh" Me " does it move forward but not cut, or does it not move forward?" Customer " not sure now, think it does not cut" Me " so we think its the deck belt, is it the one to the deck or the one that links the blades" Customer "are there two then?' Me " sometimes only one, often two. What machine do you have" Customer "don't know, think its red" Me " I really need the Make, Model, type and serial number" Customer " for f**s sake, you are just being awkward, just let me have a belt they are all the same" Me " honestly, I need more information" Customer " christ, only came to you because you are local, i will go somewhere else where I don't get asked so many questions, I only want a belt, can't be rocket science" :confused1:

Wondered the same myself Mike. but discounted it as Tom had had the carb off, as well as the cylinder head to which the manifold bolts, so reckoned he had checked it out. The WD 40 is a good trick, carb cleaner is even better as it will get sucked in through an air ingress leak and cause a noticeable rise in revs!

Does it look like item 11 on this Alec? If so its part number 110361. The last price I have recorded is £45.00 plus vat. A quick search reveals it as being obsolete, but a Toro main dealer may know differently Barrie

Glad we were of some help Tom.