[njsteve]

Been out in the garage all weekend.

Well, most of it except for the 4 hours spend replacing the PTO clutch on my 1989 John Deere 185 riding mower. I had to replace the PTO because it was 31 years old and when you would engage the blades, it would trip the 25 amp circuit breaker and kill the engine. When I checked the ohm reading on the clutch, it read 8.7 ohms. Anything over 3 ohms is bad. It was pulling so much amperage, that the wires were getting red hot.

And the biggest fun part is that it seems that the aftermarket PTO manufacturers decided to make all of their units with a built-in wooddruff key inside the bearing sleeve. That means you have to pull the main drive pulley above the clutch unit out, and then try to hammer/pry/visegrip/chisel out the two-inch long woodruff key that both the drive pulley and PTO are supposed to align onto. You then have to cut the woodruff key in half and reinsert it into to crank so only the upper pulley engages it and the lower portion of the channel is clear for the aftermarket PTO to slide on the shaft. YAY FUN! Once I got that done I mowed the yard to make sure everything was working again.

After all that I was able to assemble and install all four side marker assemblies (in their correct positions). After that I disassembled the rear tail lights and put all the parts into giant bucket of soapy water to soak for a day. They were packed full of a ton of grey silt, like the car spent years driving down dirt roads. So that was Saturday.

Sunday I spent all day trying to get the road lamps installed in a straight forward configuration and not looking like Marty Feldman appreciation day. The original road lamp brackets are slightly tweeked after years of use and after spending five hours installing/checking/removing/bending/hammering/prying I finally gave up and ordered a nice new repro set for $50.

So I spent the rest of my time installing the front valance. I taped all the edges up and fed one side in (it has to slip under the lower portion of the elastomeric bumper) and then gently persuaded the other side in as well. It worked out OK. No scratches!