Thinking about starting the year with better lawn care tools? Now is the perfect time to look over your equipment and think about making some repairs and upgrades. Addressing these issues now will ensure an easy start when the spring rush hits. Here are some tips for repairing and improving your equipment.
Lawn and Construction Vacuums
– Check the nozzle for wear. A nozzle wear kit has the replacement plastic pads and hardware to replace the bottom edge of the nozzle.
– Inspect the intake hose. Billy Goat recommends rotating the hose ¼ turn every 20 hours to even out wear. If you find a hole, it’s time for a replacement.
– Working on hard surfaces? A front caster kit makes your vacuum easier to turn and reduces wear on the surfaces you’re working on.
– Check the debris bags for holes and replace as needed. If you work in dusty areas, consider getting a felt bag or a bag liner. These need to be cleaned more frequently than standard bags, but their fine mesh keeps dust from pouring out of the vacuum onto the operator.
Leaf Blowers
– If you want to cut down on maintenance, consider upgrading to a foam-filled front tire. It doesn’t offer quite as much shock absorption as a pneumatic tire, but you’ll never have to worry about airing it up or pushing the bead back onto the rim.
– Wish you could make sharper turns? The caster wheel kit replaces the fixed front wheel, making it easy to swivel your machine in place.
– The parking brake kit clamps down on the tires, keeping your machine from rolling away when you park it on hills.
– If you have an equipment trailer, you can make loading faster by adding a quick hold down. This bracket locks your leaf blower into place, so you don’t have to worry about straps.
Debris Loaders
– Billy Goat’s loaders use the same type of hose as their vacuums. That means they need to be inspected periodically and replaced if the plastic has a hole in it.
– After using your loader to get through the fall leaf rush, you should know the problems you have with the exhaust placement. Fortunately, this is easy to remedy. Billy Goat makes extensions, deflectors, and hoses that help you get debris from the loader to your truck bed or trailer.
– Now is a good time to open up the impeller chamber and clean it out. Check the condition of the liner, and replace it as needed. If you need to remove the impeller, be sure to pick up a new bolt. This bolt is made from spring steel that stretches when torqued, making it a one-use item.
Aerators
– Billy Goat offers new tines to let you pick the best fit for lawn conditions. This includes 3/8 and 7/8 inch spike and hollow tines. They’ve also added Zoysia transfer tines, letting you pull plugs from established grass to start a new lawn.
– These aerators use belts to drive the tine cam. If you can’t get the belt to tension, or it has surface cracks, it’s due for a replacement.
Sod Cutter
– Billy Goat’s sod cutter blades are made from a hardened steel. While this helps them slice through soil, it also makes them brittle. Replace the blade if it’s chipped, bent or damaged. When you replace the blade, you also need to replace the nuts and bolts, as these wear down as they scrape against the soil. Replacement blades come as a kit that includes new hardware.
Auger
Most of the wear on your auger will be the pilot bit and teeth. Billy Goat offers replacements in three materials. Choosing the right material is a matter of balancing strength against wear:
– Carbide is the hardest, so it cuts quickly through hard ground and rocks. However, it’s also brittle, so it chips easily and wears down faster than other materials.
– Dirt teeth and bits use the softest steel. They take the most damage when striking rocks, but they last longer than other materials when cutting through soil.
– Looking for something between these extremes? Hardface bits are strong enough to stand up to rocks, but they last longer than carbide bits.
Get the Billy Goat Parts and Accessories You Need Sent Straight to Your Door
Billy Goat Parts is an authorized dealer for Billy Goat and their manufacturing partners, including Briggs & Stratton, Honda Engines and Tuff Torq. That means you can get anything you need for your equipment and have it mailed to your door. Our site has sections for common replacement parts, and a search engine that can show you factory diagrams and descriptions specific to your equipment. Best of all, we ship across both the United States and Canada. Visit us at www.billygoatparts.com.
