Still safe to use this lawn mower?

[Hears The Water]

We have a Husqvarna push mower. It is about 6 years old. It is the one that I mentioned in this post: Issues with our mower, video to "hear" the problem.

We finally got it fixed. We found the blade shaft adapter part at a local farm shop and got it put on. But John didn't tighten down the blade properly and thus, the noise. D'oh!!! The men at the repair shop didn't charge us a dime to diagnose that issue! Anyway, now we have a new problem. The mower has a lever that you push forward to lock in for the self propel feature. It has really been a lifesaver for us girls! Yesterday we were mowing and all of a sudden it would not move. Long story short, when you engage the self propel lever, the front wheels lock up and you can't push the mower. If you don't engage the lever, you can push it just fine. My question is two part... can we mow with this broken without it hurting the mower, and do any of you have any thoughts as to what might be wrong with the self propel? I went to the Husqvarna site and tried to download the instructions, but it would not work for me. I welcome any help. We need to mow today and tomorrow if we can but don't want to damage the mower in the process. Thanks again!
God bless you and yours
Deb

[Rocky Fields]

Hey.

It won't hurt to push it instead of using the self propelled feature.

The cable/rod that engages the self propelled feature may be out of adjustment.

RF

[bill not in oh]

Here's a link to the parts manual. The most likely problem is indeed the cable running from the lever that actuates the drive transmission to where it terminates on the mower. If it was working fine one moment and simply quit working, I suspect it broke. If it started to get difficult to shift into drive over a period of time, it's probably out of adjustment.

http://www.mymowerparts.com/pdf/Husq...s/I0102005.pdf

And Rocky's right - it shouldn't damage anything to push mow with it