Well, my friend and i worked on that crazy riding mower today. Found out that the controls are decidedly different from USA type controls! At the front, on the steering column brace cover, down by yer feet, are two pedals. I haven't figured out what the left one does, but, the right one will send ya into the woods, or yer work-bench, at frightening speeds! So, when it doesn't stop, ya let up on the pedal, and that infernal machine backs up at the same speed as when it smashed into the work bench! The side gear shift sez it has 4 speeds and reverse, on a metal plate at the left side of the engine where the bent shift handle resides. Problem with that---it doesn't say where Neutral is--nothing to show its location! On the left side of the steering column plate, is another foot pedal, which i haven;t figgered out yet what it does. It took 7 minutes to find neutral, so i could even get the engine started, since it doesn't have electric start. At least, i haven't found that either, if it even has it. Finally, i did start the engine, got on it, moved the shifter handle to R (Does "R" mean something else in swedish?) And it ran swiftly into the arc welder and cart in front of it! I left up on the right pedal, and it backed out of the garage swiftly, then i pushed the pedal down and--yep--you guessed it--the arc welder cart again! By that time, i was sorry i had ever seen that infernal machine! It is going back to the owner-free-no charge! I did get it tamed down once and had it mowing and going along good, then Ruth called me for lunch, so i shut it off. I guess it had a fit of pique, because, after lunch, it did everything backwards, except it didn't put the grass back on the stems! After many years of using the right pedal for the braking process, to have it work just the opposite is scary! WEEEeee--over the cliff, foot firmly planted on the brake pedal!

Find one of those Go-cart racing clubs on the Net. Ask them what and how to hot-rod your tractor. After they recover their senses, and stop laughing, they might just tell you to build or buy a go-cart and park that tractor! A go-cart is what you will end up with after you are finished working on and changing everything! And--why do all of you young folks want to go fast on a high center of balanced lawn tractor, which will surely dump you on yer head at the first turn?! And, why don't they build go-carts in a lawn tractor configuration, instead of 3 inches off the ground? HMMM?? Could it have something to do with "center of gravity"? Which is the tendency of powered equipment trying to stomp yer brains with the first hi-speed turn! Ya buy them shoes-send them to school-and they eat the books! Pay attention!

Metal. You don't own this lawn. This is a lawn party that anyone can attend. I certainly did not say that owning a tractor without a RIO makes you comparable to a drunk driver who kills people. Check my post again and see if you can find that statement. As for taking the tags off mattress's and pillow's, that law stops when the end-user buys the product. It is there to protect the end-user from receiving product that does not contain virgin material. Your analogy with the C10 you own is totally off the mark. The issue here has to do with people on this forum telling other members that defeating/disconnecting safety devices is perfectly OK and then giving lessons on how to go about it. And I as I said earlier, if you think that the current RIO configuration does more harm than good, then invent something better, patent it and then licence it to the manufacturers. But if you're unable to come up with a better idea, then why not stop telling others how to disconnect them? What is being served by doing so? It does not matter that your tractor is not equipped with a RIO from the factory. I own 15 tractors that are also not equipped with one but I wouldn't help disable someone's tractor that came with one. What also doesn't matter is YOUR personal opinion about the effectiveness of RIO's. Your opinion is not shared by the people who wrote the law that mandates RIO's. If and when statistics show that the RIO law isn't working, then the legislators will come up with something different. Keep in mind that the legislators themselves didn't design the RIO's. They went to the industry and told them that the statistics showed far too many people (including children) were being run over by lawn/garden tractors when the operator put them into reverse. They then told the manufacturer's to come up with a solution to fix this problem on their own because it is in the best interests of the industry to collectively solve this problem. Every time someone is injured, it costs money to try and undo that injury. Whenever someone sues as a result of an injury, someone pays. More often than not, it is the various insurance companies that end up paying. Now, I hate insurance companies as much as the next guy but the fact remains that insurance companies have to make a profit just like any other company, to stay in business. If they have to constantly pay out money as a result of injuries and lawsuits, then those losses are reflected in the premiums everyone pays. And if someone is injured or killed, then who knows what sort of loss society as a whole may incur as a result? There's a much bigger picture here than just the one that shows your lawn.

Simply bypass the governor by rigging a foot pedal directly to the carburetor throttle butterfly. Add a return spring. The advantage of this is that when you fly off the thing, it will return to idle. Since the maximum governed rpm of the engine is around 3600, and you might get it to spin 7000, you will only get a doubling of ground speed. To really get going, you will need to change the ratios between engine and wheels. Bigger pulley on the engine, or smaller on the transmission. Speaking of governors, I'm from Oregon, and ours is a nut. On the topic of cops, there was an old farmer that got his license yanked, so he drove his tractor to work everyday until the suspension was over. Suspension and steering wise, the gokarts we ran as kids were not any more sophisticated than the typical garden tractor. 20-30 isn't that fast. Get the toe right so it will track okay. Get as much slop out of the system as you can. Have fun. There are too many nannies these days. That said, the survivors are either lucky, or think about and resolve potential problems before they get bit. I try to not depend on luck. tom