So, I still haven’t had a chance to get Bror out to any place where I could do a power wash or anything like that, but I’ve been chipping away by hand as time permits… Our priority right now is getting the landscaping and garden beds finished, but I can steal a bit of time here and there (thanks to the patience of LTGal and kidlets). Yesterday afternoon, I got the generator off, then spent some time degrunging it, the engine heat shield and the generator mount. I brought a brush out a couple of days ago, and it has been VERY helpful…
Then, I figured, while I was waiting for bits to soak, I’d clean the fenders with a cloth and some Simple Green. Turns out the bulk of the grunge on those fenders was probably tree sap, and it came off like nothing!
Pulled the seat and did the same thing, then pulled the idler cover and the shift quadrant. Of course, THEN I had to fire up the compressor and air gun out all the crud that was built up underneath them… Climbed underneath and did a bit, then decided maybe I should jack it up and drop the gear oil outta the transaxle… I see what people say about gear oil being stickier and gungier…
Took the brush and cleaned up around the case of the transaxle, and WOW is my brush gummed up now…
So, got out what I thought was the right sized wrench (1/2 inch)… Well, it took the fill plug off, but the drain plug seemed like the wrench was slipping, and it was a lot tighter! Turns out that BOTH plugs are 7/16″ square, but there was 1/16 of an inch of grunge built up on them…
I thought for sure the transaxle would be dry, because it feels like its totally rusted when I go to try to shift… But just in case, I put a pan underneath. Good thing too… Out shot 2 to 3 ounces of totally clear liquid (water, I’m told, from it having sat out in the weather), then a whole schlump of dark, greasy, globby oil!
Looks just like you could dip your foccacia bread into it, right?
So, then, since I didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to pull the whole transaxle (thought hard about that, but then I wouldn’t be able to roll the tractor), I decided to take a stab at cleaning the engine shroud. It was too greasy for me to just brush out, so I sharpened a piece of wood on the saw and used it to scrape out grunge.
So, then I took some time yesterday and today to try to clean the grunge out of the shroud… Here’s before:
And here’s after:
So, its coming along, but slowly still…