My Craftsman 42" mower deck has one serious design flaw ("What?! Only one?"
you say...) The left hand gauge wheel on the deck gets hit frequently when
I'm trimming around trees. It's in exactly the wrong place when you cut
around a tree against the left edge of the mower deck. Even if I'm very
careful, it's very easy to brush the wheel against the tree I'm cutting
around and bend the bracket that supports it, and I have a LOT of trees on
my property. After straightening it quite a few times, I decide that some
re-engineering was in order. I cut the bracket in two along the 45 degree
bend that aligns the wheel with the forward direction, and bolted a hinge
there. This mod has worked pretty well for a while, but the hinge wasn't
really strong enough, and eventually wore out. Today I bought a spring
loaded, very heavy duty door hinge and replaced my original mod. I also
added an adjustable stop so that the spring built into the hinge pushes the
bracket out to the right position and holds it there, which makes the gauge
wheel track properly. If I brush a tree with the wheel, it just moves out
of the way and springs back. This works really well. I'll post some
pictures on the dropbox if anyone is interested.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I don't have to like Bush and Cheney (Or Kerry, for that matter) to love
America