It not only over there that they when it comes to yard care equipment their brains goes in to neutral over here too.
I got a nursery customer that finally got their crews to check the oil and air filters. It only took me three years to get them to do it along multiple equipment failures (total losses) and finally just firing the operators for not doing this. But it finally got driven home that this is a necessity on equipment especially when operated in a very dusty environments.
And I just got in a ZTR that won't move. Previous tech installed the drive belt wrong so I was surprised it even moved but it did well enough to work until the tensioner froze up. I ask if there was any other problems besides the oil leaks. None reported and said the engine ran fine.
Apparently he wasn't big on taking care of the equipment either as when I pulled the shroud a mouse bed was found along the cylinder fins complete blocked by oily dirt. Cleaned out and repaired mouse chew wires. Well pull the valve covers, adjusted the valves, and while I was adjusting the valves heard an unusual air sound while spinning the engine. It turns out to be a blown head gasket; that is it and not warped head or top of the cylinder, I haven't pull the head yet. Same fellow just taped the chewed wires instead replacing them. The oil leak was cause also by the previous tech not using the surface prep stray for the RTV. Kind glad he didn't considering the amount excess RTV that was inside the valve cover. That cover fell off when I removed the retaining screws.
The engine does runs surprisingly well even with the 35% leakage on the # 2 cylinder. V-twins do run well off load on one cylinder so I tried just running it on #2 and ran poorly on just it.
Then I decided I better check the deck. Good thing all the spindle bearings are bad and the all three idler pulleys are flopping a lot. Rebuild time.
Calling with estimate this morning. Its the customer choice it he wants to fix it but considering the replacement cost it is more than worth it.
