John Deere Spindle . . .

The spindle was delivered on Memorial Day, amazing to me but then it is Amazon, right.  

I installed the replacement spindle.  It looked right, it fit but it was a fight to get the old retention bolts to work.  It appears the threads in the new spindle were just a tad undersized.  So it was fight to get the bolts started but "I got er done."  Now with tearing up one knuckle and opening another tear on the top of my hand thus a little blood spilt it is finished.  Band aids and Neosporin took care of that.  And the tight fit means nothing is going to come loose.

Since I had the deck off I thought I would replace the drive belt on the tractor.  So off to Home Depot to get a new belt and some other stuff we could not live without.  It was Memorial Day and there was a army of people swamping the aisles of Home Depot buying every thing in the world.  We did find what we want but no drive belt.  We were told the only people who had that in stock was the John Deere dealer.

I find that ridiculous.  It is just a belt.  It is of a certain size, etc. and should be available at any hardware store that stocks belts.  But we do have a brand spanking new John Deere dealer so I know they will have it in stock.  It is a common item for a number of models of their lawn tractors.

I get really fed up with marketing that tries to BS the customer.  For instance, I replace the oil filter annually on the tractor.  The John Deere oil filter goes for about $14, the Briggs and Straton oil filter (really the same item in a different package) goes for about $12.  The Fram equivalent oil filter goes for about $7 and guess what the Walmart brand filter, an equivalent unit sells for $3.45.  Give me a break, this is silly.  Profit upon profit for essentially the same equivalent item.  It is even getting hard to find cross reference for the filters, they are all trying to hide the simply known facts to make more money.  I would not be surprised to find out the same manufacturer made all of them, with different numbers and paint colors but the innards are identical.  John Deere will not generally provide a parts breakdown for their tractors.  The good news there are dealers on line that do provide the data and sell the parts (cheaper but one has to wait for delivery).  Dealers are counting on ignorance and the urgent for instant service.

Well in a fit of timeliness, I will get the belt from John Deere.  The old one is 9 years old so I thought while it is available and open, get it done.  Preventive maintenance was something I learned in the USAF, it pays off.

Any way I have some hot work to do putting the mower back together again.  Got to rehang the mower deck on the tractor.  Not hard to do, just a space and weight issue.  The deck must weight 60 or 70 pounds.  Drag it around and hooking it up will be a hot job in the sun.  But once in every 9 years, well that is not so bad.

I'll soon be cutting grass again.