After finally getting the front struts for the Tracker, I took time over the weekend to get some work done. Obviously the first thing was the struts. Starting with the driver's side, things were pretty easy going as far as disassembly minus the idea that two of the wheel lugs were stuck and after putting a breaker bar on the lugs, I ended up snapping the studs off with the lugs. The lug nuts were obviously trash but the worst part is the idea that I would have to knock out the broken studs and replace them with fresh ones, which I did not have any in house. This meant sending the ole lady to Auto Zone to pick up some fresh ones along with lug nuts. While waiting for the new studs I just went ahead and pulled the old strut off. I was able to replace the unit with the new one but to replace the studs I had to pull the bracket for the brake pads and caliper so I could pull the rotor free to expose the wheel bearing assembly. With the baby sledgehammer the old studs came out easy. I went ahead and put the rotor and wheel back on without putting the brake hardware back on since I would have to pull the wheel and rotor off again to replace the studs. This was so I could move to the other side and jack it up, allowing the weight to sit on the wheel instead of a jack stand. Moving to the passenger side, I was able to pull everything apart without breaking any studs. The strut here was swapped out fast and everything reassembled with no resistance. With that, I just had to wait for the studs. Despite the rear shocks still being somewhat good, the front strut/shocks were shot. With the new studs finally in hand I went back to the driver's side and jacked everything up and pulled the wheel free. I had to hammer the stud in with the baby sledgehammer until I got the stud almost all the way in. Same for the 2nd stud. Once that was done I reassembled the brake hardware. When I put the wheel back on and used the impact wrench to drive the lug nuts, the two new studs were pulled all the way home from the screwing down of the lug nuts. With that I was finally done with the strut job on the Tracker. Another side job I did among other things was install the new carburetor I had to order for the gas push mower. I had replaced this thing a few months ago but for one reason or another this thing started acting stupid on me even when the choke was closed so I figured I'd just get another carb to try and resurrect this mower. The carb was only $15 online so it wasn't like it was a big hit. I installed the unit on the mower and even took the time to use the Dremel with a cutting disc to cut out a corner section of the plastic cover in order to expose the choke mechanism to make it easier to set the choke. I was able to get the mower started pretty fast and commenced to cutting a bunch of grass all around the grounds. Even though most of this area would've been cut with the zero turn mower, that machine is down due to its needing blade bearing spindles. After running the mower for a while, the machine tried to act stupid again until I figured out how to manipulate the choke to keep the machine running.
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