Repair or abandon?

36” Toro walk-behind belt drive. Blades stop running after about 15 minutes. After I replaced the dead man switch and the blade engagement switch trying to rule out those items, local mower shop adjusted the clutch for the blades and addressed a few minor problems as well as did an oil change and other maintenance. Charged me $130 which seems fair.

Got the mower home and the problem that it was brought to them for still persists; the blades shut off after about 10 minutes. I call them up and they said “in that case it needs a clutch which will run about $500.”

This is a mower that I’ve had for roughly 20 years but used minimally. Just my <1/4 acre lot home once a week in the summer and every couple weeks in the winter. Do I put the $500 into it knowing that I'm on borrowed time with other items such as rear tires and belts?

My options are to
1: have this mower fixed...$500
2: purchase another used mower trying to stay below $1500 and not knowing what headaches I may be purchasing.
3: pay the guy that does other lawns in this neighborhood $25 per cut to do the lawn

What are you thinking is my best route?

Buy an electric clutch and install it yourself.

When the blades stop how long till you can re-engage the blades? Do the blades slow to a stop or act like you turned the PTO switch off?

NorthBama said:

Buy an electric clutch and install it yourself.

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I’m not much of a mechanic to start with, although perhaps a YouTube video would help me muddle through. The other issue though is that I’m currently in a rental house and don’t have all of my tools currently nor a very good place to work on the mower

Hammermechanicman said:

When the blades stop how long till you can re-engage the blades? Do the blades slow to a stop or act like you turned the PTO switch off?

Click to expand...

I’ll get about 10 to 15 minutes out of it and then they will shut down. I can engage the blades again and they may run for another 5 to 7 minutes. Repeat and they might run for 1 to 2 minutes until they won’t engage at all.

I’ll let the mower cool down for about an hour and the blades once again work for about 7-10 minutes and for decreasing windows of time

Kinda sounds like the clutch is bad

Well, $25 for a cut, trim, and blow on a quarter acre sounds pretty fair to me. No bother, gas and oil, equipment taking up space, time and trouble.

Well, I ordered a new clutch today. I’ll give it a go trying to put it in.

Although the cost to have my lawn cut is certainly reasonable, it brings up a lot inconvenience. I’d have to coordinate unlocking the gate and moving my truck to gets parked on the side of the house.

hopefully I don’t run into too much trouble putting in the clutch and hopefully it will resolve the issue.

I just ordered the Toro clutch to install on my Toro T-bar walk behind belt drive mower. Model 30159-790509. Serial #61005.
Anybody know what I will need to set the air gap at on this clutch?

GENUINE OEM TORO PART # 105-2635 CLUTCH BRAKE ASM; REPLACES # 54-3200 & 55-7410

Got it fixed and it ran fine mowing the lawn last night. Was more involved than I thought it would be to get the clutch out and the new one in, but it’s behind me now. I replaced all the belts while I had it apart. Thank you for the tips and direction.