fixed the machines

Phil and I travelled to the Carr Astronomical Observatory early to get a jump on some tasks. He was particularly interested in getting the lawn cut in advance of the work party. And that meant I had to give him some working machines.

I first serviced Green Flash, installed a repaired front wheel with new tire. Back tire, sadly, was very low. Pumped it up. Installed a charged battery and fired it up. It was working great. One down. I rode the mower over to the house and Phil took the wheel.

I then reviewed Blade Runner, the walk-behind, self-propelled. It had already been recently run so I was just inspecting. I found the small SLA installed so I tried it. The mower started fine. Good. Trimmed around the pergola. Put the battery on charge for a while to top it up. Two down.

Then it was to Stargrazer with the seized motor. I was able to turn the motor by hand a fraction of a degree, which as good, but it was very stiff, even with the spark plug removed, which was bad. Worked the motor for a while with the help of PB Blaster and finally got it started. Ran it for an hour. It's loud and gets very hot. I'm not happy about that. Will require a deep dive...

Found the old red push mower. Huh. Thought we had disposed of it...