Well, it almost worked.

I got the deck reattached, and fired it up, and it worked great.  I apparently didn't realize just how stretched the old belt was.  I knew it was stretching because if I hit a branch or rock, the blades slow to a crawl, but with the new belt, it took effort to engage the PTO and it roared louder than I was used to.  It was nice to have the whole system tight again.  I can't see any difference in blade height when mowing either which is a plus.


All this good stuff however only lasted for about 100 feet.  Then another boom and no more mowing.  The other spindle (the one I didn't replace) pretty much self-destructed.  This is what I saw underneath when I got it back to the slab.  It isn't supposed to look like that.


The damage is even more evident once I removed the deck.  It is frustrating because my deck isn't nice to take on and off.  It is only 6 clips but it is still a real pain and usually takes me 10-15 minutes to drop it and 20-25 to get it back on. 


So I have ordered another spindle.  After that fiasco, I decided to go finish some of the other ongoing work.  I dug the rest of the trench and got the rest of the pipe laid for the drainage.  I just need to fill it in at this point.  I brought up a couple of buckets of gravel, but I have become wimp and it was tiring to carry 5 gallon buckets of rock up the driveway, so I will probably tie off the things hanging below the tractor since the deck is off and use the dump cart (that is kinda what it is for).


While I should preface this by saying my AC hasn't been on for weeks (very unusual for August), I noticed that some of the trees have already begun to change.  This is unusually early.  I wonder if it will be an early winter.  If so, I need to step on it, I have a lot of things to get done before winter