Recent content by sgkent

probably depends how reliable their power is. Like here, a long outage is two or three hours, and that might be once every 5 to 7 years. A whole day out is a once in a 25 - 30 year event. But someone in the foothills might see 10 shutoffs a year for two or three days at a time when the wind is...

I have been using the Simple Green Pro HD that is metal safe. It cleans well and doesn't discolor metals. The orange big box hardware store has it by the gallon. I use about a cup and clean hot water...

how did you test for spark? A plug can fire outside a cylinder but with compression fail. Were it me, I would buy a new fresh plug from a known good source and not Amazon. Then blow the cylinder out with compressed air to make sure it is not flooded. Pull it over a few times with the plug out...

I would use the choke, or something to substitute and richen the mixture with the choke to see if that stopped the surging. That will tell you if it is running too lean. You can cut the fuel off and let it die from starvation to see if it is too rich. If the rpm gets better when the mixture...

how old is the fuel

the best solution would be to find a mentor who can help and oversee your work. The exhaust glowing red might indicate a cam timing issue where the heat is going out the exhaust instead of being harvested for power first. If is is a two or more cylinder engine, it can be that one cylinder is not...

Trash? A mentor, who was engineer and machinist known for building winning Formula One and Indy engines, once suggested I try Liquid Wrench on some exhaust studs that were frozen solid. I laughed but tried it. I had already snapped one double nutted. Came back the next morning and all but one...

If you can find an inexpensive replacement rim, you can always Sawzall the wheel to make a slit, then pry to widen the slit and pull it off. As to your original problem. Have you checked the brake pads and cable / bar tension? Lots of mowers use a pad that wears, and when it does the belt...

manually raise the throttle when it is bogging and see if it has spare power. If yes it is a governor issue. If no then it is probably a fuel issue or compression issue like tight valves, or even a blockage in the exhaust, even a dirty air cleaner.

just go to Craigslist or Facebook market place and buy a $75 Toro where the owner has moved to electric. There are hundreds of them here for as low as free.

does it even have an opening for a side discharge?

... or maybe the guy who doesn't have the time and money to fix it right, but he is fully capable of spending the time and money to fix it two or three times... .

did you check Amazon. They popped up in a Google search as selling windshields for it a lot less.

We tigged it and machined a new plug hole. Sometimes on racing heads we also moved the ports and added a second plug. The only issue with a 2 cycle that was a challenge was keeping the cylinder perfectly round when honing or boring. They flex more. Anything else you need to know?