So, earlier this year I posted about picking up a new used riding mower and planning to fix it up and use it for a while.
Well I fixed it up and got it running and it was great for a few months. I started cleaning up the rust and touching up the paint, I even built a custom LED headlight for it, and life was good.
... then it broke.
So I fixed it again, and it was fine for a month or so, until it broke again. I fixed it, then it broke... the very next time I used it. This cycle kept repeating over and over. Eventually it got to the point where I would have to stop repeatedly to reinstall belts and fix broken tension springs while cutting the grass, just to get the yard done. I think my record was 11 times.
Ultimately the mower still works but it really just needs a few hundred dollars worth of pulleys, springs bushings and other bits replaced to make it reliable. Not to mention it’s going to need a new deck, new tires, and all kinds of other random bits replaced in the not too distant future to keep it going. But I just don’t have the energy or money to keep putting into it anymore.
It’s a shame because the engine still has extremely low hours and runs like a dream. For a while I even tried finding a clean cheap mower with a blown engine so I could swap it over, but all the reasonably priced ones sold ridiculously fast.
Then last night out of the blue I get a call from my father-in-law that his neighbor is moving and needs to sell his one year old mower ASAP and for about a third of the cost of a brand new one. Needless to say I jumped all over that deal.
The new one is also a Troy Bilt, but it is a lighter duty version. Still for my purposes, it should work great. Not to mention the thing is like showroom clean. The guy I got it from definitely went out of his way to keep it extremely well maintained. Honestly I could probably easily turn around and resell it for a few hundred more than I paid for it, but at this point I am just happy to have a functional mower again. Plus when I did the math if I can get the old one sold for close to what I am asking for it (which isn’t much), then I will only be in the new one for roughly what it would have cost to buy a bagger for the old one. So considering the new one came with the bagger I will basically be breaking even, but getting a new mower out of the deal.
So now the old one is up for sale online... Wish me luck