Tuesday, July 14, 2020

JUNKYARD DOG

      I have a lawn mower that is 50 years old. Every once in a while it needs to be repaired. I've written about this before and even showed photos.




     Now it's very hard to find parts for something that is that old. I needed  rewind spring. That's the spring that pulls the cord back in and winds it so that you can pull again if the motor doesn't start.

     So to find parts one has to do some searching. I found the part but they wanted 50 bucks. Well what do you do? You can't just run out and buy a 50 year old mower! Well, he said he would order the spring in a week or two so that gave me time to shop around some more. We did find one guy who said he could make us an air filter filament.

    We went to see about the air filter. What a junkyard! The guy had about 100 old mowers. There were many roto tillers, snow blowers and  other small engine machines. These were spread over the whole yard.The guy had a shirt that hadn't been washed for a week and pants to match. He thought he was God's gift to comedy. He had a dozen vehicles stored there and I knew who owned them. .He took me back to see if a mower like mine was there. I had been expecting a place with new things.

    I asked if he had the spring I was looking for. He went to look for one and told me not to go in his shop. Five minutes later he came out with a new spring in the original package! How much did he want for it? 10 bucks! I took it in a heartbeat. So the Micro Manager only had a twenty. So he says I'll take the ten for a tip!  What a card!

     Every once in a while you stumble into a very odd place. This was a very different business practise.

     So this was the typical junk yard without the mean dog.

27 comments:

  1. Wow, you lucked out with that one! You have a lot of patience to keep that mower going. We have an old mower too and our patience gave out this year. It was getting too heavy and grumpy for this old lady to start and push around. We bought a new one and love it. But it wasn't cheap.

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    1. I understand that some of the older mowers are heavy and hard to maneuver.

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  2. I like your very dry "this was a very different business practise" and I love to meet a character

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    1. I think he wants to get the word out that he has a business that caters to people who want used parts.

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  3. I vaguely remember a wrestler by that moniker.

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  4. How perfect was that? It pays to look around.

    You sound like my husband. I believe he has the first Bic pen he ever owned. He keeps parts of things that break and can fix many things. His mower isn’t fifty years old however.

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    1. The micro manager keeps things here...too many things.

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  5. Wow! You got your replacement part for a good price, and got entertained along the way! :-)

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    1. We lucked into that one. Sometimes guys like that are hard to follow.

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  6. I love this story! I'm looking forward to a follow-up to see how the spring worked out. The guy at the junkyard sounds delightfully funny!

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    1. Yes he was funny. The more you looked around the place the more odd stuff you saw.

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  7. My lawnmower is 70 years old. Every once in a while HE needs to be repaired too!

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    1. 70 years? That was 1950. I was running around then but I honestly had not seen a lawn mower.

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  8. Ha! What a bizarre transaction! And kudos to you for keeping the old machine running. If only more people did that, the world wouldn't be swamped by discarded trash.

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    1. This machine is built of better stuff than the crap you buy today.

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  9. I am surprised there was a replacement part.

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    1. These parts are used by many different machines for many years so you can find parts.

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  10. What a great story. Good luck getting the mower to run now. You'll have to give us an update. :)

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  11. What a superb find. Remember where he lives.

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  12. That's one of the best stories I've heard for a long time.

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  13. Hello,

    Great find, it is good you can do the repairs. That was a big tip! Take care and stay safe! Enjoy your day!

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  14. I would say that was about as lucky as one can get. Neat story.

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  15. Excellent. Our daughters are amused at the age of some of our equipment. I tell them that when we bought them we expected them to last. (War babies!) My husband sets to and repairs our objects when they start to fall apart - this week it was two wheelbarrows, who knows what will be next! Its satisfying, isn't it?

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