Rover the ride-on mower has hit a few rocks with the recent mowing. There are spare blades in the upper shed.
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I just tried changing the blades now. Three of four blades were easy to remove, one required angle-grinding to remove.
When putting the new blades on, two were easily secured and the other two are currently loose because the central bolt is not locked into its hole. The central bolt is not circular at the cross-section but has a cut-off side at the cross-section, with removed thread, creating asymetry: this asymmetry causes it to lock in place in the matching hole, which should not be a fully circular hole. The problem appears to be that the hole in the blade-holder has become circular, so the bolt slips. The solution may be to weld an extra plate to fix the shape of the hole, or replace the blade-holder entirely. Either way, it is not a simple fix.
It may be possible to simply run the mower with two blades instead of four, for the time being, as the two correctly-affixed blades are opposite from each other, so the spinning would be balanced.
More blades (part BRC5540) will be needed to be purchased for the future.
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Actually, I bypassed the need to fix the screw holders by simply holding the bolt tightly with pliers while tightening the nut with the ratchet/socket wrench. This seems to have worked.
I believe I have installed the blades correctly, with some slight spin so they will deflect when hitting a rock, but the ride-on mower did not start when I attempted to start it. This might be because I had left it overnight on an approximately 20-30 degree angle from horizontal, so something may have been temporarily flooded. Hopefully waiting for everything to settle will mean it should start again.
This task should not be completed without more blades purchased (or an issue to follow up on new blades purchased).
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After opening the screw on the carburettor and starting it like that, it seemed to clear out whatever had occurred (maybe the carburettor had been flooded by my tilting the engine). Turned fuel off, opened carburettor screw, started, stopped (no fuel), replaced carburettor screw, turned fuel on, started engine fine :)
More blades have been added to the shopping list. That should be sufficient to keep track of it.
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Rover the ride-on mower needs blades again, so reopening this issue (so the context can be followed). @maclean said he would look for them :)
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I put 2 new blades on to replace the worst two that were opposite each other, but the blade mount disc is damaged and bent, so needs replacing.
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Doug the mechanic has fixed the blade mount disc and @Dylan has kindly picked up Rover, to this issue is fixed :)