Got up this morning and decided to do a little shredding seeing as I've only gotten to do a very little since getting my DB 880.Crank her up, proceed to the field, and get about half of it done. Then I decided to go out and shred along the edges of the road to whack down some of the deep weeds there. Make one pass down each side of the road, look back and realize the entire tail wheel assembly on the shredder has fallen off. The nut had evidently vibrated off the bolt and it slid out. Several minutes of searhcing turned up the bolt, but could not find the nut. Bring tractor back to the house, find a new bolt and nut, reassemble tail wheel and head out again. Head back for a second pass on each side of the road so I can get close along the fence line and that's when the rest of the fun began. Evidently, the guy across the way had been running some water to a horse trough and he let it over flow...a LOT! So much so that it had collected along the fence line and made everything very muddy. You guessed it, I buried the right side of the tractor right up against the fence. After a few attempted forwards and backwards to try to get out, it was clear I wasn't going anywhere and only making the trench deeper (it was all the way up to the bottom of the tractor). I went back up to the house, got my little trailer and riding mower, brought a trailer full of dirt and some bricks and filled in the trench. I disconnectd the shredder and after several minutes was able to get the tractor unstuck. I brought the tractor back to the house and spent a good hour and a half pressure washing that damn caliche mud off of it (dang stuff is like glue). I headed back down and chained the shredder to the tow ball and drug it out of the muck sideways. After reconnecting the shredder to the tractor I realized I had lost one of the pins that keeps the ball end of the lift arm on the shredder...sigh. Lifted shredder up, headed for the house in 3rd gear high range. Got to the house and tried to shift down to 2nd gear to park it and suddenly the I realized the shifter was flopping around loosely and I am now unable to change gears at all. The perfect ending to a crappy day. Now, for my real question...did I bust the shifter, or is it a matter of just pulling it out and aligning it in some slot and reinserting it???
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