Broke the 720 yesterday!!!

[eagle5473 0]

While out mowing the lawn yesterday I notice that at one point I lost my ground speed, and that the clutch no longer had any tension on it. Limped the 720 back the the garage, removed the gas tank and trans cooler to find the large spring tension bolt had broken off..Looks like 30 years was enough for that bolt under the load of the spring for all its life. Well needless to say the lawn did not get finished last night LOL, but I did manage to pull the engine, mower deck and lower frame cover off and get the eye bolt off of the 720....The good news is that my parts tractor had what I was looking for , the bad news is that I had to pull the engine out of that one too LOL......now I have my part and just need time to get things back together......and clean all that grass out of the 720 it gets everywhere has anyone else had that eyebolt beak? P.S. I also broke the throttle cable while trying to get it loose as well one more thing to fix

[JP 0]

Hey Aaron, Bummer! They only break for me when I adjust the clutch for a customer! LOL I usually WD the heck out of the threads prior to breaking the bolt... (LOL) Was your cap/plug missing over the hole? It's a 'great' place for h2o to 'collect'. JP

[swede 0]

I had the same thing happen to me, except I didn't have a parts tractor to steal from. I was in a bind, so I bought a large turnbuckle and used one of the eye bolts from it. The eye was the correct diameter so everything worked fine. That was 2 years ago and it is still holding.

[eagle5473 0]

Jim, yes still had the plastic cap over the hole on the top of the 720, the older 4040 dosent have a hole at all, boy i am glad the threads from the doner tractor were loose it has been sittig fo a LOOOOOOng time