Getting ready to maintain
Maybe it’s time to purchase the maintenance manual. For our lawn tractor, I mean. Had an offer to do the fall tuneup, if I would pick up the necessary parts beforehand. It was then that I realized that I didn’t know how to begin. What did the parts look like? Where are the part numbers? I turned to the Internet, and did find out what the model number might be for the tractor. Used a camera; kneeling in the gravel and scribbling long alphanumeric strings on my wrist is not nearly as much fun as I had hoped.
Thankfully, others have taken this path of infamy, and someone produced a list of the needed parts for his own tractor. All I needed to do was confirm the similarities to my own green monster.
In the end, I learned that JD actually sells a kit, and after a quick phone call to the dealer, I had one reserved in my name. When the car came back from sea (it serves as a kayak carrier), I picked up my necessaries and drove to the city. Round trip, just under three hours including a quick stop for groceries. I now have the oil, and filters, and spark plugs and a sticker to show that the maintenance was completed (it will be, soon. Really).
Spent some time discussing education in the good old days, when people went to school for a year at a time and had only one day off for good behavior (they called it “the teachers’ convention” back then). After some deep thinking (I’m educated, eh?), I think we’ve improved the lot of students in the last half-century.
