[njsteve]

Lately, I've been working on this 1989 John Deere 185. I bought it used in 1990. Going strong for 31 years now. Whenever something breaks on it, I feel like Darrin McGavin in A Christmas Story: yelling and cursing but taking extreme pride that I won another battle with the ancient green monster.

I actually love this old tractor. Yesterday's problem was the battery light going on at idle...and then full time indicating it was not charging at all. I figured it was the original voltage regulator finally going bad. So I googled the problem and it was either a bad voltage regulator (around $100) or the fuse in the fuse holder is loose. You learn a lot from youtube videos! - I pulled out the 20 amp fuse, scuffed up the terminals and put it back in. Worked like a charm! Back to charging once again.

The week before, it was the main coiled spring that holds tension on the hydrostatic drive belt pulley, snapped off in the middle of the yard. After 31 years it wore through the 180 degree end and broke off clean. It took a week, but the new revised John Deere spring arrived and I installed it and back out into battle with the yard once again.

My kids all learned how to drive (and parallel park) on this tractor over the past 20 years. Though my daughter was notorious for breaking parts that the local JD dealer had never seen broken before. For the longest time I thought she was getting $$ kickbacks from them for the parts sales. One time she broke the center hub out of the old front rim. (replaced with the new shiny right front rim in the photo). The dealer had never seen that happen before and wondered what she ran into and how high of a speed she did it to cause it to be punched out like that. She shrugged her shoulders and said "I dunno". No one ever figured out what the heck she ran into.

The one thing I have always done is bought the proper John Deere part and not some aftermarket piece, so in 31 years of replacing broken parts (that broke from wearing out completely) I have never replaced the same part twice.

I have had to repeatedly remove and weld the main lifting arm that raises and lowers the deck, though. It is a bad design that puts all the hanging weight on a small 3/8" thick steel tab hanging at a bad angle of the bar. So every two years like clockwork, it would snap off and I'd have to go on ebay and buy another used lever. Last year I finally took the bar out and brought it to a local racecar chassis shop and had them properly gusset it and weld it up nicely. Haven't had a problem since (knock on wood), though I bought an extra used one just in case. See red arrows in photo for the bad design - breaking point..

And last year I sent to engine oil out for analysis and the lab. It has its original Kawasaki engine. The lab guys were amazed at the findings and told me that whatever I was doing, keep doing it!

And in the background is the 1954 Sears Craftsman tablesaw my friend gave me from his later father's woodshop. The wife and I used that a couple weeks ago to convert the obnoxious sliding panel doors in our front hall closet into hinged, opening doors. (It's the mini-She Shed that contains all her tools and stuff)