quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Use caution with australian mowers, as they spin the opposite direction and the blades may fall off.

No such thing as an Australian mower. Because no responsibly-minded Aussie would chance mowing their yard anyway. It's not worth the extreme risk of ambush and painful death by venomous snake, giant spider, or drop bear, just to have neatly trimmed grass. Instead, it's best to just remain indoors, have another beer, and let nature take its course on the lawn.

Some especially reckless Australians might try to import foreign lawnmowers, but that would have to be smuggled in through the black market, and they'd have to be converted to right hand drive and backwards blade rotation. So it wouldn't be cost effective.

We switch for sharpened blades on our mowers once a week. Of course we do a lot of mowing. Yes to anti seize on blade bolts.

Is anyone actually using a torque wrench on a mower blade? It's not like they're cylinder heads. I kinda horse the bolt on with some residual anti-seize from years back, it's not going to unscrew. If I have to horse harder to get it off, I probably overdid it.

I torque them. always. its annoying when they come off.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

Some especially reckless Australians might try to import foreign lawnmowers, but that would have to be smuggled in through the black market, and they'd have to be converted to right hand drive and backwards blade rotation. So it wouldn't be cost effective.

Black Lawnmowers Matter.

She'll be right.

Just took the blade off of my relatively new Toro yesterday to sharpen it.

Had to use liquid wrench and a generous application of rubber mallet to the swinging end of the socket wrench to affect removal. Yes I have a cordless impact driver and it promptly said "nope" when I asked it to do the job.

To the horror of some of you, I applied a tad of anti-sieze to the bolt threads and didn't use a torque wrench when I put it back on.

Mowed the lawn no problem. If there is a failure later I'll update, but I don't anticipate such a thing.

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Is anyone actually using a torque wrench on a mower blade?

I do. But I use my cheap Harbor Freight one, not my good one. "Close enough" is fine for mower blades.

Nobody here is using CLP, Hoppes, TW25B or FrogLube or some other similar product for this purpose?

What kind of gun forum is this?!

Nah. 3 ft breaker bar works just fine. I usually have to carve grass away to find the bolt though.

quote:

Originally posted by Cookster:
Nobody here is using CLP, Hoppes, TW25B or FrogLube or some other similar product for this purpose?

What kind of gun forum is this?!

I wiped all the non painted bits with CLP. Guess I thought that went without saying.

quote:

Originally posted by Cookster:
Nobody here is using CLP, Hoppes, TW25B or FrogLube or some other similar product for this purpose?

What kind of gun forum is this?!

Back in the day when Frog Lube was popular I bought a bottle of the spray and jar of the paste. When I discovered it was overhyped bullshit, I just set it aside. But I've used up the spray on my fence gate hinges and latches. And used up the paste underneath the mower to help keep grass from sticking. It worked well for that. Now I have a couple of cheap cans of spray no-stick PAM that I spray under my mower. The mower's much easier to clean out when I spray that underneath. I also use it to spray my weed eater heads and shields.

In westren Oregon and western Washington corroded lawn blade bolts are a real problem. I've been using marine grease on the bolts for years. It the water from damp or wet grass and cleaning out under the deck with the hose that causes the bolts to corrode around here. I just reduce the torque values about 25 % with the marine grease on the bolts.

Left handed or right handed thread?

quote:

Originally posted by photohause:
Left handed or right handed thread?

Normal thread. And since they laugh at my puny rattle wrench, I've put a dab of anti-seize on all three.