Lawn mower auxiliary unit with flexible drive shaft

Claim 1

A rotary lawn mower with auxiliary unit comprising: a lawn mower main frame with wheels to move across a lawn; an engine mounted on said frame having a rotatable drive means with a top end extending upwardly from said engine and a bottom end extending downwardly beneath said engine; a cutting head mounted to said bottom end and being rotatable therewith about an axis of rotation perpendicular to a cutting plane with said cutting head including cutting elements extending outwardly therefrom in said plane for cutting vegetation beneath said main frame; an auxiliary frame sized to be moved away from said main frame with said auxiliary frame having an output means of power and a rotatable input driver; a flexible shaft with one end connected to said top end and an opposite end connected to said driver, said shaft being rotatable by said drive means of said engine to rotate said driver; a rigid extension mounted to said opposite end of said flexible shaft and mountingly received by said driver; clutch means on said auxiliary frame operable to connect and disconnect said output means of power to said flexible shaft; a flexible nonrotatable housing in which said flexible shaft rotates and extends from said one end to said opposite end of said flexible shaft and wherein said rotatable drive means is a crankshaft of said engine; a grass edge trimmer mounted on said auxiliary frame and connected to said output means of power, said trimmer including a rotatable cutting head with a nonmetallic cutting line extendable outwardly therefrom to cut and trim grass, said line is substantially and nonself-supporting in a static condition and an adaptor removably connecting said one end of said flexible shaft to said rotatable drive means, said adaptor including a main body with an internally threaded end portion removably threaded onto said top end of said rotatable drive means and an opposite end releaseably connected to said one end of said flexible shaft.