|
- Lawn Mower Tires, The Essential Difference
The essential difference in replacing a car tire and flat tire
of a lawn mower is,
* You do not carry a spare tire with you all the time when you
move along with your lawn mower
* Your equipments for replacing the tire like jack, spanners
etc. are not with you, they are in your basement workshop
* Your house is nearby so you can summon help from your family
members
* You may not be in a hurry to change the tire and you are not
putting anyone to difficulty by leaving a vehicle with a flat
tire on your premises, as you would if you leave your vehicle on
a public road.
* You can change the tire at a more convenient time
* Depending upon the size of tire, you may require some external
help
- Changing the tire
A lawn mower works on an undulating surface too. Therefore if
your tire has gone flat where not all the tires are on a level
surface, do not try to change a flat tire at that place.
Depending upon where the tire has gone flat, you can change the
following procedure slightly, but ensure that the spirit of
safety precautions is not violated.
If you have a portable air compressor with you, (even a foot
operated one will do), try to inflate the tires and then shift
your lawn tractor to a flat and level surface, it will be best
for the tractor. If you do not have an air compressor and the
flat area is nearby, take your tractor in, as is condition, to
the flat surface. The lawn mower tires are a rugged lot. The
tire will take this punishment without a murmur.
The procedure for changing the tire is as follows.
* You have already brought the tractor on a flat and level
surface. Park it there. Shut off the engine. Pull the hand brake
and remove the tractor keys in order to prevent accidental
re-starting.
* Clean the tire to be replaced and the area around the tire
with water. This will take away any dirt from the nuts holding
the tires and reduce the work load on you while taking out the
tire
* Loosen the nuts holding the tire slightly. Make it a point to
ensure that all the nuts are loosened slightly. Any one
remaining to be loosened might give you a problem later on. Do
not back off completely. Just loosen them and that is all. If
you are not in a position to back off even a single nut, do not
proceed further. Retighten the loosened nuts and ask for
professional help.
* Fix up other wheels with a wheel lock or slip a wooden plank
or a stone so that the wheel may not move. Do this to two wheels
at least.
* Next slip a hydraulic jack or a crew jack at a convenient
place on the chassis, (This place is usually indicated in the
maintenance manual) and raise the wheel to be replaced)
* Back off all the nuts holding the wheel and take out the
wheel. You may require some help in this as the lawn wheels are
slightly larger than car wheels.
* After taking out the wheel, clean the brake drum (if you have
one) and wash off all the dirt that has collected, remove
anything lodged in there.
* Put a new wheel and get the other one repaired.
- Safety Precautions
1. Wear hand gloves all the time. This will prevent injuries to
your hand
2. When loosening the nuts, give particular attention to
slippage of spanners. They can cause serious injuries to hand or
head as you will not be able to control your movement when
spanner slips
3. NEVER EVER change a tire on an undulating surface. There are
many cases when the jacks have slipped from their position due
to this and deaths have resulted from persons being crushed
beneath lawn mower.
About the author:
Andrew Caxton contributes adding reviews and special articles
regularly to http://www.lawn-mowers-and-garden-tractors.com . A
gardening website that carries further interesting readings on
tractor and lawn mower tires
|
