My Lawn Mower Repair Thread (56k warning)

[hanyoukimura]

Great job you're doing man, don't ever stop!
I would however like to know how you manage the solid waste from these mowers. Old chassis and blown engine blocks.
They do tend to pile up and become an eyesore.

I give them to the scrap guy who picks up scrap from the shop next door.

[Jimbo67]

hanyoukimura, I like how you post the pictures straight into the message rather than as an attachment. If I didn't see the pictures, I wouldn't have spent time reading every one of the postings and then deciding to join this forum. The pictures made all the difference. It's great to see all these old mowers coming back to useful lives. Very interesting to read as well!

I recognized the 18" Toro in one of your postings and my father-in-law has the same one. The reason he can still use it is because it is so light and easy to maneuver (he's almost 80). The mower's vintage is around 1985-1989, he thinks. I mow his lawn occasionally with it and notice that the emissions are a bit worse than typical -- not sure if that's because of the age or condition of the engine. As a result of your postings, I've come to appreciate this and other old machines more. Thanks for this thread and keep up the great work!

[twinfords]

sweet, i actually sold every walk behind mower i had ready for sale last weekend, i need more decks!! so much fun. I also donate my scrap to the local scrap guy, he loves the aluminum decks and when i dismantle the engines so he gets full scrap price for them.

[hanyoukimura]

hanyoukimura, I like how you post the pictures straight into the message rather than as an attachment. If I didn't see the pictures, I wouldn't have spent time reading every one of the postings and then deciding to join this forum. The pictures made all the difference. It's great to see all these old mowers coming back to useful lives. Very interesting to read as well!

I recognized the 18" Toro in one of your postings and my father-in-law has the same one. The reason he can still use it is because it is so light and easy to maneuver (he's almost 80). The mower's vintage is around 1985-1989, he thinks. I mow his lawn occasionally with it and notice that the emissions are a bit worse than typical -- not sure if that's because of the age or condition of the engine. As a result of your postings, I've come to appreciate this and other old machines more. Thanks for this thread and keep up the great work!

Glad you enjoy the thread and the photos. I love taking photos (I do it on the side semi-professionally) and I like to document my work to see before and after photos.

sweet, i actually sold every walk behind mower i had ready for sale last weekend, i need more decks!! so much fun. I also donate my scrap to the local scrap guy, he loves the aluminum decks and when i dismantle the engines so he gets full scrap price for them.

Business has been slow lately, first it was due to the dry weather in July and also because I've only had time to fix and have that little Murray for sale.

Today that changed as I moved got two mower running, one of them finished, and moved out 3 mowers and a chainsaw. I've got some space in the garage again!

First up are these two mowers from a month or so ago, a Troy-Bilt 12AV566N711 an d a Craftsman 917.388510. These and a chainsaw were brough to me to work on, none of them worked, one was a friend of his.



The Troy-Bilt was/is in sad shape. It's not that old, yet the paint is peeling badly, it had a nest under the recoil shroud, was filthy, seized blade brake cable, bad gas and filthy air filter as well as rusty spark plug and of course ditty oil. It clearly spends its days left outside, maybe under a pile of dirt, oh knows. With that in mind, I only did so much cosmetically because the paint is so bad.

When I first got it running it sputtered and ran poorly and the self-propelled system was weak. Some through cleaning and a good dose of Seafoam later and it's still not pretty, but it is clean and works great mechanically.



The other one was his.



It also suffered from bad gas, gummed up carburetor, and a general lack of maintenance, but it is at least in decent shape.



Runs great now as well.



The other thing he had was an "Eager Beaver" chainsaw.



Never worked on one before. All I did was empty out the tank and put some fresh mix in (with Seafoam) and adjust the carburetor. Seemed to work pretty well. Cut some wood with it.

After he picked those up today I was feeling productive, so I pulled out my neighbor's cheap Weed Eater that was given to him. I didn't get any photos of this one I don't think, but the issue with it was that the crank was really bent, and oil was in the gas tank and carburetor.

I swapped out the engine for one from the MTD I had kicking around. It burns oil but ran well, he doesn't care. So I swapped the Weed Eater shroud, tank, carburetor, and air cleaner (after cleaning them really well and replacing the diaphragm). Still smokes some but runs great and he was happy.

Finally, I decided to tackle this Poulan that was given to me.



This is one of those interesting case studies that makes you wonder what on earth the owner did to it during its life. I figured it was just missing the shroud from an attempt to fix it and they just threw it out without the shroud, but it must have been off for a while.



On both sides of the engine where the shroud would normally bolt down, were pieces of folded sheet metal, with broken away edges, like someone tried to make a home made shroud or something.



Around front, we see that it has the wrong spark plug, and that the governor spring was stretched out and wrapped around the throttle control spring!





Because I didn't have an extra handy, I did what I could to make this one useable.



I also found that it has the incorrect blade installed crooked on the blade adapter, there was water in the gas tank and carburetor, and the oil came out gray-ish. What a mess!

Its not done and currently the blade is off until I get the right adapter. However, I did get it to fire right up before I removed the blade. Started second pull. Not bad for a neglected and abused machine originally on its way to the scrap heap. Gotta love these little Briggs engines! I've got enough spare parts that this should hopefully looks pretty decent when its finished. I just need to get a new blade brake cable for it.

[Two-Stroke]

Good work, hanyoukimura. In particular, the close-ups of the engines are very clear. If only people with questions about non-running mowers would post good pictures like that.

Did you notice that this thread has over 10k page views? It's got to be one of the most popular ever.

[hanyoukimura]

Macro is a wonderful camera setting.

10k? Wow that's pretty neato, explains why photobucket always unhappy with my bandwidth usage!

Glad people enjoy it!

[hanyoukimura]

Making progress...

[hanyoukimura]

Well the day has come to call this Poulan finished.

I had to get a new blade for it because the one that was on it wasn't the correct type, and therefore wouldn't correctly mount. It is in good shape and fits MTD mowers, so its been sharped, painted, and put aside for another mower. Got a universal 20" blade for pretty cheap though.

I did quite a bit to this mower, just because I wanted to see the sort of turnaround I could perform.

This included painting the underside of the deck, the blade adapter, and mounting bolt.





I also painted the lower sides of the deck, as well the engine (high heat paint), and the tank. It's got a brand new air filter assembly too.

The shroud I used came from this MTD mower whose smoking but usable engine went onto my neighbor's Weed Eater.



The shroud has a 2-piece cover, a metal silver lower piece and a black plastic upper piece. Since the engine;s gone and the deck is unused, I decided I might as well put them on this Poulan. First thing was first though, to make it looks presentable, so I sanded it and used some Rust-oilum silver metallic. First time using that paint, gotta say it covers super well.









--









Not bad!

Finally it all came together and this is what it looks like all done, remember that it started out looking like this:



The end result:





















I'm pleased with it overall. I think the repainted cover makes the engine looks nicer too.

I don't think I'm going to use the plastic cover, partly because it says "Yard Machines" on it, but mostly because its in pretty rough shape. Lots of gashes in the plastic. Although I do like the look.







Time to find it a new home!

[hanyoukimura]

I gave the mower a test run, the engine's very powerful and didn't bog down at all even in the thick grass. It did sputter some blue smoke occasionally, although I'm thinking that may be from residual oil that might not have gotten out of the gas tank when I cleaned it. Forgot to mention it had both water and oil in the tank! I put some Seafoam in there and it improved the smoothness and the it stopped hiccuping for the most part. Love that stuff.

I do notice a metallic noise that seems to becoming from the recoil, so I think I'll pull it off and make sure everything is lubricated and in good shape. Other than that, she's a tough one!

[hanyoukimura]

Didn't get as much done as I wanted today, but I did make some progress.

I pulled the carburetor off of the lawn chief. It's got varnish all over the inside, the butterfly valve is stuck. I replaced it with another carburetor, it will start but dies after, so still some work to do.

Meanwhile. a string trimmer showed up at my house the other day with no note on it, so I guess it mine now! It's a Mcculloch Mac 65. Nothing fancy I guess. I don't know much about brands and such, but the price was right and I don't have a gas trimmer. So one $9 carb kit later and about 2 hours of tuning the carburetor and I now have my very own gas trimmer! First one I've ever worked one too.