Austin Area TW Chapter (all gens welcome, even T4Rs; heck, just make it a Toyota and we're good)

wow...

 

Morning

 

now is an oddly peaceful time to get some good photos around town without crowds...

Looks awesome!

 

True dat! Take a photo with your truck and the "I love you so much sign"

 

He’s good

 

Morning Atx!

 

Definitely, thanks man!

 

Morning folks! Morning the rest of ATX!

 

Morning, ATX

 

I'm deep into a mower rebuild. Community Service Announcement: Toro is JUNK!

I've had a Timemaster 30" walk behind for almost 4 years now, and the amount of crap that I've had to replace is nuts, for a $1K mower. I had a bearing/belt blow about a week ago, (one caused the other, can't tell which one was first), and in investigating that, found a bolt attaching one of the spindles that had broken off long ago, maybe in assembly. I got all the necessary parts, and last Thursday, was going to fix it up. Thought I would replace another belt, so started taking the belt guard off for that, when one of the two bolts holding it on snapped off at the head! I disassembled the mower yesterday, in an attempt to extract the rest of the broken screw, and the drill bit that came with the Irwin extractor didn't begin to drill the necessary hole to insert the extractor. So I have to buy a new subframe, for $120, just because the clowns at Toro buy junk screws to put their stuff together. I wouldn't be doing this if the mower was a couple of years older, but I'll add a little money, in order to get a few more years out of it.

 

The scoot lift works well for mower repair.

 

I had a decade of luck with my last Troy-Bilt propelled 22. The deck finally disintegrated under the engine. Gave the thing to an older neighbor with the opposite problem, and the mated parts live on.
Replaced with the same "improved" model - handle doesn't fold and had to invent my own system, adjusts for height are not as fine. Other than that, it's OK for what it is. I have nowhere near the size lawn you deal with, but I bet it will take me just as long this year! That's OK, better than dead!

 

Yeah, when we moved in here, I needed a bigger deck, (DECK, folks! DECK! And no FIFY!!! ), and not too many companies make something 30" or bigger on a walk behind, w/o going commercial. Toro is a good name, HQ'd in 'sota, but this is an absolute piece of , from a design/build standpoint. If my retirement stash hadn't imploded in the last couple of weeks, I would probably have just chucked it, but times are tough.

5 minutes after the bolt snapped, I posted it on Craigslist:

https://post.craigslist.org/manage/7096080947/3kyyr

 

That's sad, because Toro used to be THE mower to get. My grandfather had one from the early 80s that my father is still using in Missouri today.

 

I had one that lasted over 15 years here. The deck was rotted out in sections, but I covered that with duct tape, and used it here to mow the back part of the yard. I called it The Rockfinder, because I didn't give a crap when it would find them and fling them around. I finally ditched it when I walked into a Home Depot a couple of years ago and saw a floor model Honda sitting there with a super cheap price. That little bastard will prolly outlive me.

If you look at the reviews of this Toro on Home Depot, you'll see responses from Toro that basically say, "our overall rating is 4.3, so we'll keep trying to improve to 4.4". Basically, "some people like us, and the rest of you can go F off"...

My review of the mower got rejected by Home Depot on Friday, and the only thing I can think of, (there is no highlighted portion), is that they don't like my use of the word "screw". Sorry, but screw is both what Toro calls the parts, and also the definition of a fastening device that doesn't use a nut; those are called "bolts".

 

https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavir...e-order-tuesday-for-everyone-to-stay-at-home/

 

My son still hasn’t been permitted to work remotely, even though the hands-on portion of his job is all at home.

Using this to force the issue tomorrow.

Thinking of throwing a bag of shit at the house that threw the house party this weekend.

 

Well, this is getting a bit to real .and way to interesting dor my taste.

Sunday, we had to get pictures taken for a "special covid19 ID badge"

Today we get asked from our customer if our company provides cots or has cots available for the employees I guess that is the joy of being critical infrastructure I may end up getting locked in at work

 

Continued in the work from home mode, since I can't go to work anyway! Once the fog and ooze burned off, I finally got to the pool equipment area, and used up all those round stones that came from the fence redo on the West side a while back. Finally. Then I had my beer, and tapped out those bumper holes.
Before:


After:


I'll let the granite work it's way in for a while, and then dust it with sand to fill. The close end will have grass repaired up to the stones.

If they close the Lowe's in Kyle, or San Marcos, they will be essential to me in a matter of days!