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May 31, 2009 - 4 Wheels: It Counts!

You have a lot of time to think when you're mowing an acre of grass, and during yesterday's lawn adventure the mind wandered to what I was going to blog about today, and I came up with the idea of doing a vehicle of the month review kind of thing.

I couldn't decide on what car or truck to do first, then it hit me... well it was the low hanging branch of an Austrian Pine that I didn't pay attention to, but it drove the idea for my May's vehicle into my skull.

It's my tractor! A SImplicity Model 4212H lawn tractor with 12 HP Briggs & Stratton 4-cycle engine, and the best feature of all, hydrostatic drive.  SImply push down on a lever to go. The farther you push it down, the faster you go. For revers, simply pull up on the lever. Completely smooth, no bucking. No gears to grind. Makes me wonder if something like that could be done for cars. (Might be an efficiency issue with a large vehicle)

In any event, this is my 22nd mowing season with this tractor and it almost looks as good as the day I bought it and it runs better than ever. (Now I've jinxed it I'm sure) The grass catcher is usually NOT on since the stopping to empty the bags slows me down.

I had a bit of a fuel leak this year, and while looking up a part number I got into my tractor service records (doesn't everyone keep those??) and flipped past the purchase invoice from back in 1987 when I paid almost $2400 for it. I bought a Nissan 4x4 pickup the same year for about $11,000 and ran it for 90,000 miles, but it's been gone for about 17 years, so the tractor is looking like a better bargain!

4:40 am | Categories: classic cars Permalink | Alert Administrator

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