Corona Timekiller 6: Repairing the Sulky

Those of you with a great memory and nothing better to do might remember this thread from 2015:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/lawn-mower-sulky/104414/page1/

The TLDR version is that I have a walk behind mower, I was about to have knee surgery, and was too cheap to pay someone to mow my lawn while I recovered. I found a nice, restored 60 year old Gravely sulky, made a hitch for it and lived happily ever after for almost five years.

I love this thing! It's super comfortable, cuts my mowing time in half and I'm not exhausted when I'm done.

It was perfect. And then it broke.

I had just finished the whole lawn and was running fast down the gravel road to clear some mud from the tire treads. As I turned back onto the grass, I hit the bump and felt a sharp SNAP! I didn't fall, but could tell that I was sitting a little low and crooked.

Damn. I knew I had one week to find a replacement, or I would be walking again.

One of the nice things about living in New England is that it's not all that hard to find old farm equipment that's no longer being used. About five minutes of Poogling turned up a couple of viable candidates within reasonable driving distance. I made a deal on a frame and seat that was in the middle of a Craigslist ad for a big bunch of Gravely stuff up in Massachusetts, and drove up there with $40 in my pocket a few days later.

I really only need the spring right now, but the frame is actually in really nice shape, and the seat is probably worth more than I paid for the whole thing.

It only took a minute or two to get it all apart with the impact gun. Then I treated it to a few minutes of hatred with a member of the Death Wheel family...

...And then a few coats of my favorite paint : Rustoleum Hammered Black.

Reassembly didn't take much longer than it took to get the old one apart, and I was ready to mow again.

But, wait...there's more!

When I first saw where the original spring had cracked, I suspected that the problem was primarily due to a combination of metal fatigue and my fat ass, but there was something else that might have contributed to it. A couple of years ago, I had added a two inch wide boxed steel drawbar between the three inch spring and its three inch mounting plate, and I thought I might have created a stress point there. I had considered adding a piece of three inch wide steel between the spring and drawbar for extra support, but I just didn't have time to cut and paint one before the next mow.

Gravely made a couple of different sulkys over the years: there was the basic sulky like mine, and the steering sulky.

I obviously didn't need a steering sulky, but there were a few cheap ones on Craigslist, and I tried to figure out if both types used the same spring. I started looking to see if I could find part numbers, and then I discovered that somewhere along the line, seat springs started breaking and Gravely came up with a small, curved three inch wide spring support. It’s part #9 in the diagram.

So...it wasn't just me. Post-War Americans and gotten heavier than Depression-Era Farmers.

I couldn't find one locally, but did locate a spring support on eBay. It cost the same $40 that I paid for the replacement sulky, but I figured that it would be a good investment.

When it arrived, I gave it the same wire brush and Hammered Black treatment as I had done to the spring and then installed it.

Whoops...

This could have been a lot worse.  It happened in a fraction of a second.

This tool is truly Awesome/Evil.

I had read on a Gravely forum that the spring support ends up giving a harsher ride, but fortunately, I'm heavy enough to overcome that. It is noticeably stiffer, but it's not uncomfortable by any means, and I'm sure that after a week or so, I won't even notice anymore.

What a day for a mow, huh?

Ever since a coworker / friend learned that I was doing welding and fab work, he's been asking me about making a sulky for his mower.  When he first asked, I was like "a what??"  I forget what all he had in mind, but he wanted a multi-function one - sit, stand, maybe tow a trailer behind it or something?  I can't remember, and he can never seem to get all his eggs in a basket enough to figure out what he wants me to make.  Actually I think he wants to help make it, which I'm fine with, so that means even more of his time.

And... man, those kids all looked normal, but I for one have never seen anyone, anywhere mowing in a suit, with or without tie. 

Woody said:

 

 

Why could you not simply weld that crack back up?

In reply to DWNSHFT :

been there, done that with single leaf trailer spring, not easy to weld and very temporary - get you home repair only 

Looking at the pics I just can't seem to get the picture of a nice shiny yellow Bilstein between the seat and the frame out of my head.

It never occurred to me that this thread would be about a lawnmower.

I only know one kind of sulky.

A picture of me at the office.

Very different style than my Gravely's sulky, but mine was a 1994. Mine had a ⊂ shapped spring. Over time the spring deformed and the seat starting pointing up to a point it got uncomfortable. I do miss that lawnmower.