It pays to check (mower repair)

The self-propulsion on my mower cut out a little while back, before our house-hunting trip to Minnesota. As a result I've mowed a few times without it and that's a miserable job, especially concerning our back yard has a sizable hill. The day it stopped working I did some Googling and YouTube watching to try to quickly self-diagnose the problem. Soon afterward I bought a new drive belt for the internal propulsion system, because that's what I figured would be required.

I should probably hose this thing down from time to time

I thought it would be a somewhat difficult project. If the belt needed replacing then I'd have to take the mower partially apart. A big plastic shell underneath, part of the deck that surrounds the blades, would have to be removed and there are a handful of seemingly tricky screws to find. Then I'd have to make sure the new belt was secure inside before putting it back together. It doesn't sound bad at all in retrospect but I waited a while before attempting this. We've been busy with everything else going on and I didn't want to be without the mower immediately before listing the house.

Well I finally took a closer look at the actual mower this week. I, like I said already, was preparing for something at least a bit challenging. After flipping the mower on its side and cleaning it out enough to do the work, I looked inside and had to laugh at myself. The belt was easy to see, and it's still in fine working order. It had just slipped off the wheel in the middle and needed to be re-threaded. So I still needed to remove a couple easy to reach screws and briefly remove a metal part that holds the belt in place, plus re-connect the old belt of course, but it was an easy job. I'm a little embarrassed it took me so long to simply take a look.

Not the best pic, but the belt was entirely off the wheel

Removed this piece and re-threaded the belt

Put back together and ready to go, hopefully it doesn't just come off again

It always pays to check, with your own two eyes, instead of just using the internet. Lesson learned. Recently there have been a few other projects like this, around the house, where I've put off something for far too long and the solutions, once I finally put some real effort into it, were relatively simple ones. I'd be best served getting over my laziness and tackling those little jobs more aggressively.

One can hope a newer house doesn't have as many problems though. Fingers crossed.