Merry Tiller or Not So Merry Tiller Breakdown Part 1

A long long time ago (circa 1994) I purchased a used tiller from Ram Rent All.  At the time my lawn service did a decent number of "projects." Some of these required a tiller and at $50 per rental I decided that I should invest in one. After checking the classifieds and the local retailers I asked Jay Rivers at the rental place if he had any for sale. In one fluid motion he snapped up a ratty spiral note book flipped through and informed me I could purchase the tiller I'd been renting for the small sum of $225. It was a good deal - a commercial machine for the price of a homeowner model.

Now flash forward 17 years. This tiller has been consistently cranking and running, barring a couple of carburetor cleanings and a new spark plug or two. Friday afternoon while tilling in leaves in the back yard garden it stopped. Not the trusty Kawasaki engine, which was new on the machine when purchased, but something in there that was keeping the tines from turning. So I pulled the thing out of the garden and thought about what I needed. After a quick cleaning with the water hose and a fresh Diet Coke I managed to roll it around to the garage where the real mechanical repairs take place.

This was the first picture I could find.

In my mind there were several possibilities which could have caused this break down. Question one was do I really want to take this thing apart? (count the holes in the picture!) Question 2 what all is inside there?(meaning the transmission)

This was the second.

The disassemble did not take place until nap time on Saturday. Did I mention that Katherine was gone to a Quiz Bowl Tournament and I'd been entertaining the kids all day?  Once they were both sound asleep or at least the newer one was, I took to the process.

One bolt left to remove so that the tines and the transmission are free and separate from the motor.

After gloving up, I had to remove the handles, followed by the cast metal piece that holds the wheels and the draw bar. This took about 20 min and I was left with the picture below.






When the last bolt was out, I slid the transmission from between the two pieces of the frame and realized that I was still faced with removing the tines.

Checked on the kids at this point and finally gave into Dixon's plea that he was not ever going to go to sleep and should be allowed to go out and play.

Now I had an assistant (mainly to go in and listen for William crying) who was amazed that with a 2 foot cheater pipe his father could snap metal bolts off. We managed to break the heads or nuts off of 3 ends of the two bolts. They were still stuck in there so I doused them with some Blaster 16-PB Penetrating Catalyst - 11 oz. spray and waited a while. In the process of removing the remaining pieces of the bolts, a hole was drilled which produced smoke, this led to an explanation of why I used motor oil to cool it and was followed with lecture on viscosity, heat, and metal melting temperatures. One day my kid will rock the science fair.

After 2 hours, Katherine returning from her Quiz Bowl outing, lots of hammering, some cursing, and a significant amount of heating from a propane torch the two remaining pieces were removed and the tines slid off the shaft.


Now we were ready to see what was the true problem with the transmission.

I did not count how many bolts held the transmission together at the time of dis-assembly,  but if the diagram is correct there are 32.

With 4 flat tipped screw drivers and a door removal tool, I managed to crack open the case and find my problem inside. I was hoping that the weld that held the gear to the shaft had given out so I could just re-weld and re-assemble but instead I found that the smaller of the two chains had indeed broken.

Small chain is pulled out and at the bottom of the picture

This being a repair which would require parts, I cleaned up the stuff and manged to stack everything (all 32 nuts and bolts) in the garage until sometime next week when a chain can be obtained and the machine reassembled. The true question is can Michael put Humpty Dumpty back to gather again at that point.