Neil Mossey: How to CHANGE Flymo Mower BLADE and lower it with spacers... step-by-step guide

BUY a FLYMO BOLT WRENCH HERE! (commissions earned!)

Buy FLYMO SPACERS HERE!

Buy WD-40 here!

How do you change the cutting blade of a Flymo Mower? Or fit the spacers and lower the cutting blade? I show you step-by-step how to remove the blade on a Flymo Hovervac (or Simpliglide OR turbolite) and install spacers to decrease the height of the blade for a shorter grass cut.

How to CHANGE Flymo Mower BLADE and lower it with spacers... step-by-step guide

TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)

THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!

Oh damn it. Hello, welcome back to the channel. It's that time of year. Got some nice lens flare from the sun in the background. It's time to get these out, the mowers. I say plural, that one doesn't work. So this video is how to change the blade on a Flymo Hovervac 270, or 250, or 260.

Let's have a look underneath.

I'm changing the blade. You're probably doing this as well to fit spacers, so if you want the blade to be lower to the ground, lower to the grass, get the grass shorter, you need to fit these spacers. And you can choose how many you want to fit. I'm going to go for all three because I want a buzz cut. I found, I don't know if you found this with your Flymo Hovervac, but I found our one just feels a bit underpowered. Maybe it's not underpowered, maybe it's just that the blade needs to be closer to the grass. So that's what we're doing in this video. It's just a quick video to show how I'm doing it, and hopefully that might help you. That's the new thing we're trying today.

So you will need these spacers and this blade tool. It's much easier to do this earlier on in your ownership of the Flymo. I had some comments on the last video I made, a video for how to change the blade on the Simpliglide 330, and some of the comments said that they just could not budge this bolt here. This is how we're going to do it. I'm going to see if this one works because I've only had this a month and I've used it once, of course. But we're going to see if it does budge, and if it doesn't, I'll suggest some things to try and get it moving. If you haven't got one of these tools, it's not essential. So I don't know if you can see it in the sun. I'll put a link down in the description for getting this on Amazon or online, so hopefully that will sort you out and probably some spacers as well.

So what we're going to do is line up the bolt. It's like a wrench, a plastic wrench. I can't do it one-handed. Let's put the camera down over here, and I just—whoa—just turn it around so you can see. And if we go in close, I'm going to line up this hexagon—is it hexagon? Tell me in the comments—and we're just going to turn it anticlockwise. I'm going to hold the plastic thing that spins around above the blade. I'm just going to try and turn it. Obviously, you've got to keep your knuckles clear as the blade—wow, this is not easy. That is not budging at all. Wow, to everyone who left a comment, thank you. I absolutely feel your pain. It'll be much easier to do this soon after you bought it, I guess. I don't know what this mark is. It looks like a pen, some kind of quality control pen mark. And I'm going to try and get as much turning motion up here. No, that is not turning. I got this for my birthday, a huge can of WD-40. I'm going to try and use this to try and loosen it, so I'm going to stick it down the side. This is just my suggestion. This isn't what you're supposed to do. And I'm going to see if that will help work its way down into the bolt. It's probably a bit much—oh damn it, I actually cut my finger on this sharp, uh, turning spinny plastic disc, not the blade. So now it's nice and greasy as well as, uh, not budging. So be careful if you do use some kind of lubricants. Obviously, this is going to slip off more easily now. It's like this isn't thick enough. Okay, as you saw on the screen there, now I put these on. Um, I've also, I've got my old Simpliglide turning key because, I don't know, it just feels just a tiny bit more solid and stronger. So that doesn't help you if you haven't got one, but let's try this. I'm going to hold the disc here away from the blade and see if I can get this open. Get my fingers away from the blade. If it slips, I don't want my hand to go over here. Ah, there we go, finally. So the technique, maybe the WD-40 helped, but because it's like a lever action, if you could put all your strength on the end of the turning key, that gives it maximum force or torque to turn the bolt. And it is just a brute strength thing. Uh, so sorry if you can't get yours budged. Maybe some of this might help. Something that someone else left a comment to say that they got to this stage and they found that the bolt was just turning and turning. Let's see what happens here. So you turn it anticlockwise, and they said they got so far and they couldn't pull it. It just kind of kept turning. So I'll show you what the bolt looks like when this comes out. Alright, so the bolt, I don't know if you can see, if it's just turning. The screw does go all the way up to the bolt at the end, so you do need to keep turning and turning and turning for it to go all the way out for me. Now we can take the blade off, and helpfully it's got a little inscription. I don't know if you can see this. It says "this side to grass" on one side. So obviously this is the side that we'll need to see when we put it back on. Now we can get the spacers, and they look like little Connect 4 things. You can stack them up because they have sticky out things and recessed buttons. I put them together. The buttons should match the holes. You just keep turning them till they lock together like that. I'm going to put all three on because I want my buzz cut for my lawn. There we go. So all three are pressed together, and there are dots and holes. Let's bring the camera over. There are the same dots and holes on the motor here, and reassuringly this comes off as well. Let me show you underneath. That's all that's underneath. Grass in there, let's take that out. So obviously it's this way up. Oh, I don't want it to fall apart. Doing this with one hand, holding the camera. Now we can get the stack of spacers and slot the dots onto the recessed button holes like that. Oh, that's really quite, quite proud there, isn't it? And then we put the blade back on. So I get the side that says "this side to grass" here. They lock onto these notches here, like that. There we go. And then I get the bolt, and it's got—oh, I got to do this one-handed—there we go. Now I can turn the bolt as far as possible. Make sure the spacers are this side of the blade, not on top, because this is what now pushes the blade closer to the grass or closer to the ground. Gloves back on. We can tighten it up with the bolt. So I hope this works for you with the supplied bolt turner. Turn this around as tightly as possible. I should have probably put some WD-40 on the bolt for next time, but hopefully there won't be a next time. I think, I think that's it. So time now to test it on the grass.

If you have the Flymo Hovervac 250, 260, or 270, look at this. You absolutely must fit the spacers. It's so much better now that the blade is closer to the ground. Before, it just felt really, like I said, underpowered. But with a lower blade, it gets through the grass so much more tightly, and it's really lifting up lots of grass, which is amazing. And if you're worried that it's going to maybe hit some paving stones, here's my test here. You can see the Flymo Hovervac just glides over these stones, and it—it just—the biggest fear, isn't it, that the blade, a lower blade, might hit obstructions on the ground. But for me, I'm finding that the hover works, and it just, it just floats over them. So this is really good news. Look, look, look, just look at this. Just went over this stone without, without a beat. It just hovered over it, and that was right in the grass. I can even lift the mower on its side and run it along the wooden runner that runs along the ground down by the side of the hut. And that blade is going really up against the wood without hitting it or without being obstructed by it. It's a really close cut without anything bad happening. I was a little worried when I first bought the Hovervac that I'd made a terrible mistake because compared to the Simpliglide 330, the Hovervac just felt like it wasn't cutting any grass. I thought maybe it was the smaller blade or maybe the smaller motor, but these spacers, that's the thing that makes the difference. So I need to now put something in my review on the Hovervac—there's a link to that in the description—just to say that you need to lower the blade to get the most out of this Flymo mower.

What I really like about the Flymo Hovervac 270 is that it feels to me just that bit lighter than the Simpliglide, so it's a lot easier for me to throw it around the garden and to swing it around the grass and to hover. I think the Turbolite is even lighter than this one, and I really want to try that out. But for now, the Hovervac seems to be doing the job, especially now that I've moved that blade down. I am calling this a Dad Delivers success. Thank you for saying hi in the comments or hitting the thumbs-up or the subscribe button. It really helps me to keep this channel going, so thank you. And right here is what YouTube knows you are going to love watching next.

Previous post...
How I CLEAN my USB C port: EASY remove fluff from USB-C socket on mobile phone...

All about me, and getting these by email.