Yesterday afternoon around 3pm I decided to go get the DR Field and brush mower and mow some of the brambles in the field. I thought the DR was s bit hard to maneuver this afternoon, I was about 40 feet into the field mowing and discovered the reason for the turning difficulties, I had a flat, less than 2 hours on the machine and I had a FLAT, disheartening as my older DR machine still had the same tires and never had a flat in ten years. As I examined the tire of course it wasn't a flat but the tire actually rolled off the bead.
So I went to the Civic and got the 4 way tire iron luckily one of the ends was a std. 3/4" and started to take off the three lugs, unfortunately the tire was to low to the ground to use the 4-way so I got a Cinder block and put the DR up on a block to help with the clearance. That worked well, and was able to get the tire off. Down to the workshop started up the compressor and tried to get the bead to seat, it wouldn't with me pushing on it trying to compress the outer diameter to get the bead to re-seat the bead onto the rim, I went and got a ratchet strap from the van and put it around the outside of the tire to compress the middle of the tire, this worked and finally the bead seated and the tire expanded properly.
We were out of Green Slime, we use this extensively on all of our equipment with tires from, wheelbarrows to lawn tractors, it seals all small punctures. Off to Ace Hardware I go and $11 later I'm back to the barn removed the tire valve to let the air back out of the tire, squeezed the entire bottle of Green Slime into the tire through the valve. Re filled the tire with air and off I went to replace the tire on the DR. James and Jason learned how to put lug nuts on and how to tighten them with a 4-way tire iron, and how to blow up a tire using a compressor. They each earned a dollar for helping Papa with the tire.
I dropped the DR off the cinder block and off I went mowing field, wild roses, pucker-brush, brambles, and all sort of unwanted field brush was instantly mowed down I managed a 1/2 acre and as I went was surprised to locate eight or so 4' plus blueberry bushes. I marked these with Orange tape as I went along. Orange tape helps but by no means guarantees that I won't mow them down when I get in the zone mowing..., Rose said that we should get some more permanent markers like conduit poles we use to mark some or the bigger rocks that we avoid in the field.
I looked around admiring my work, liked what I saw and decided to tackle some of the 20 foot, "yes twenty foot" diameter wild rose bushes, slowly but surely I finished the first of four of them, I decided I'd finished enough for the day and started for the house. I throttled the DR back and saw a puff of smoke from the DR and thought "that's odd", still looking down I noticed liquid spraying out of the side of the engine all over the tire and side of the machine, not yet comprehending what exactly had occurred. Then reality hit hard as the muffler received another big spray of oil and the exhaust flashed fire from the muffler, "oh crap". Then PANIC, called to rose "FIRE", grab and extinguisher, still not quite sure why the DR would be spraying oil all over the place, I looked for the source of the spray and noticed that the quick release valve used to drain oil from the machine (apparently a recent introduction as my older DR machine doesn't have this) was gone, missing, probably a wild rose cane caught the quick release and popped it off allowing all the oil to quickly pump out of the machine. This quick release cover was a very dangerous addition to a DR machine that is used to mow brush and brambles in my opinion, and one I will write the company about. I for one will definitely replace this quick release valve with a solid pipe fitting in the very near future. I looked for a while but never located the quick release cover.
I then realized I was very close to the well leaking oil all over the ground so I put it back in gear and maneuvered a ways away and shut the DR down, luckily the fire went out just as Rose arrived with a bucket of water. I maneuvered the DR onto a berm so it would stop leaking oil and walked away. That was bad, could have been much worse than it was, I guess we got lucky if that's what you want to call it, or someone was watching out for me.... I do think I'll pick up another fire extinguisher for the outside equipment, just in case...
That was my weekend adventure, how was your weekend?
Update: DR remedied the situation above with the quick drain oil plug quite nicely, glad to see them standing solidly behind their equipment, they replaced the part that was lost and gave me a couple quarts of oil as well, one week and a 1/2 hour installation later I was a happy camper and back in operation.
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