Yard-Man (MTD)/Kohler 22HP Lawn Tractor Overview/Start/Drive

Today, my brother and I were back out in Marseilles helping fix up and clean my Uncle Scott's mom's house with him and Steve. Still a lot of work to do inside, but we got the outside done, at least for this week. We cut the grass and used a blower to clean the driveway.

The bigger lawn mower that my uncle has been keeping on this property is this Yard-Man 22 horsepower riding lawn mower. From what I have seen, this machine looks to be somewhat rare. I could only find three or four pictures online of this exact model, and, based on what someone stated, this model had to be special ordered from Wards in the 1990's. For the most part, it's a pretty nice machine. It's got a powerful engine on it and gets the job done. Sure, it's old, dirty, clunky, and problematic, but I like it overall. Steve just got done doing some major work and repairs to this thing over the winter. I believe it had problems with the carburetor and other stuff. It still has a few small issues, even after being fixed and put back together. After cold starting, it needs at least 5 minutes to warm up before you can throttle the engine up or else it dies. Also, after I was using it for about 20 minutes and took a quick break, it would not restart for quite a while. According to Steve, it was something to do with leaving it out in the sun combined with the engine already being hot. This video was recorded after that incident, and it started right up for the camera! It works a little differently than the John Deere's I have driven in the past, but I got used to it pretty quick. I think the hardest part is using the gear lever to control the speed of the tractor as well as stopping it and changing directions. I know the lever is probably intended to stay in one spot, but this is a smaller yard I was navigating it around in, with steep hills and tighter spots. While mowing, my hand was pretty constantly on that lever, changing the speed to suit the area I was mowing in. If I was using this out at the family farm to cut the field, the lever wouldn't move so much.

Why did I make an 8-minute video on a silly lawn tractor? I love these things. In all honesty, I love driving these things more than I love driving a car. I began developing my driving skills on these machines as a little kid, with my first experience being at the farm. The first rider I drove was my Uncle Don's John Deere 345 back in 2006. He still has that tractor, and I still enjoy driving it at the family picnics with a trailer behind it. As soon as I heard that Steve got this guy going, I had to take it for a spin in a video. Believe it or not, today was actually my first time really using one of these to mow a lawn, and I didn't do as bad as I had thought!

If I get a chance, I'll do a video on the push mower eventually.