My lawn mower makes me laugh every time I mow the grass

I have a Snapper riding lawn mower, it has a 38-inch deck, 16 horse Briggs and Stratton industrial engine and it has the bagger attachment. Seems ordinary enough right, WRONG! I have had this mower for a few years now and it has proven to be a fantastic machine. I have what seems to me a large lot for a city dweller, 115x115 feet, which comes out to about 1/3 of an acre best I can do the math. When we moved in I had a 20-inch push mower and for a number of years that I used to keep the St. Augustine grass beat down. It would take in the neighborhood of about 3 hours to complete the mowing portion of the yard work, not including the edging, the weed whacking the blowing and the bagging. It was an all day job that I used to break into two days, especially in the heat of the summer. This was not the way I wanted to spend my weekends, I do enjoy yard work just not that much of it.

So there I was, toiling away year after year, thinking I ought to buy me a riding mowing to make this job easier. I could never bring myself to spend the money on one though. Riding mowers are not that expensive and are readily available at a wide range of generic stores. They are also available from the specialty lawn equipment shops although they are usually a better make and that makes them more expensive. It is like anything else, you get what you pay for so the cheapies at Home Depot are that, cheapies by comparison to the professional models. Same goes for the Ryobi weedeaters when compared to the Stihl or some of the other professional models – the Ryobi’s are crap and I speak from experience on that. Keep in mind my little puch mower I had gotten about 14 years earlier and it was a non self propelled and only cut a 20 inch swath at a time, slow and tedious. Now I still have that push mower and it is approaching 20 years old now, it is an MTD I bought at a Sam’s type store that is no longer in business.

So anyway, I toiled along in my yard for about 7 years before I came up with a solution to my lawn mowing issue. I was over at a friend of mines house and we were just BS’ing about this and that when I noticed what looked like a riding mower stuck between his chain link fence and the shrubs on the other side. I asked him about it and he tells me the story. His neighbor had died several years ago and when he did, she got a lawn service to take care of the lawn. Fine and good I thought but that did not explain the mower being stuck in the bushes in their back yard. He told me that for some reason the son from next door (he did not live at home) had pushed it back there not long after his Dad died. Strange I thought. Anyway seems when he did he did not know or care that on a hydrostatic drive lawn mower you must release the drive mechanism or the wheels will not roll. So in his haste to move the mower he destroyed the hood assembly and the busted pieces of plastic were tossed on top of the rest of the machine. I asked my buddy if he thought she may want to get it removed from behind her shrubs, he says, let’s go ask her.

We bang on her door and ask, she lets us into her backyard to take a look. This is when I see that it is a Snapper with the Briggs and Stratton I/C motor on it. I ask what she would take for it and she says 50 bucks, I give her the money immediately. It has been sitting there so long that even the front wheels will not roll so me and buddy have to literally carry this big damn lawn mower out of her back yard and load it up in my truck. I remember thinking that worse case, I will have to load it again to take it to the dump if I can’t get anything going and I am only out 50 bucks, worth the gamble I thought. I get this thing home and unloaded into the garage and thought – let’s make the motor run first because that will determine if she is a keeper or not. It will not even turn over, froze up. So I drained the sludge and filling the crankcase with clean new synthetic oil and an oil additive. I then filled the cylinder with a product called PB nut buster and let the whole thing sit for a day. The electric starter was non operational as well, the battery was shot but even after jumping there was no joy. I took the starter apart, removed the rust, and gave it a general clean and lube and it was working perfectly. So perfectly in fact, that when I installed it on the mower to test it again the motor actually turned over. Wow, I thought we are getting somewhere now. After downloading the manual for the motor from Briggs I purchased a new spark plug, fuel filter and air filter. Well we were off to the races with that, the engine ran fine and that initiated the rest of the work. I then commenced the tear down, I took that mower completely apart, every nut and bolt came out and all things were cleaned, lubricated, painted in some cases and then reinstalled. I had spent the original 50 bucks and another 15 in nuts and bolts that I broke taking it apart and after sharpening the blade I was mowing the grass, in a fraction of the previous time.

No hood though and after a couple of weeks of using the mower I realized that I kinda wanted to not be a hillbilly and thought I am going to get the hood from the Snapper dealer. The one that was on it was completely destroyed, that piece of plastic was beyond my repair capabilities. After a trip to the Snapper dealer I found that I was a hillbilly because I was not going to spend $479 on a new plastic hood. So after a couple of more weeks of mowing without a hood I was sitting in the garage smoking a cigarette (I smoked then but not for the last 2 and half years) looking at the mower and I got to thinking, I could just make a hood for it. Kinda like the old Case tractors, flat on top, flat on the sides and only a same radius to go between the two planes. I thought a little plywood, a little fiberglass and some red paint and I should be able to create something that resembles a hood for this crazy mower. Something, while not looking as good as the $479 factory model could still pass muster. So away I went, chopping up lumber, building molds and laying sheets of fiberglass mesh, all of which I already had in the garage. So I get this thing built up and it looks pretty good, that is probably where I should have stopped but NO………………. I had to take it just those couple of additional steps further.

So there I sit, taking a smoke break, thinking ya know what, I could put a hood scoop on that thing – easily. So back to the lumber and fiberglass I went and produced a giant snorkel hood scoop right there on top of the previously innocuous hood. I remember Bride coming out to see what I was up to a couple of times and just shaking her head and walking back into the house mumbling something about my heritage. After a few more smoke breaks and more pondering I came up with adding flames, then a name. I was looking at my Troy Bilt lawn implement and it dawned on me, Smitty-Bilt. Then, just when I thought my master piece was complete I decided it needed one more crowning jewel, the Tasmanian Devil right there on the front. Well after a bit more time we were done, a new freshly painted hood. Not what I had originally envisioned but complete all the same. Hood scoop, flames, Smitty-bilt emblazoned on the side and the Tasmanian devil himself leading the way, it was quite a sight to behold. My wife just laughed, not at the mower, but directly at me for being so ridiculous. I realized then that I am actually a hillbilly. It did not take long before I realized I needed a skull-cap with flames to wear while I mow the yard, one with a built in sweat band. It was the keystone that makes the whole experience work. My favorite part of mowing the grass is the craned heads to get that second look, I know on more than one occasion someone has said “did I just see what I think I saw”. To this day almost every time I mow someone drives around the block to come back for a second look. It makes me laugh every time I mow the yard and its sheer ridiculousness is very amusing to me.

Does your mower make you laugh when you use it?

Whaddyathink?