Hours on a mower

bertsmobile1 said:
Firstly oils a blended with different chemicals for different end uses
The BEST mower oils are those blended for mowers however mower engines are very crude & lazy so do not put a lot of stress on their oils
Change it at the end of every season & it will be fine
The only engine damage I have seen that was attributed to oil ( apart from the lack of it ) was a customer who was running 2 sroke marine oil in his mower because he had a 5 gallon drum left over from his old ski boat

Now the air filter
The elbow should have had a wing nut on it
And you tighten it just enough till the air filter will not turn in the rubber elbow.
The other end is fine because it clamps onto aluminium bit the filter end you are clamping onto the plastic filter that deforms and allows unfiltered air to be sucked in.
Not too big a disaster if you throw but mulching creates a lot more dust around the engine and of course bagging covers everything with dust that gets sucked in
If the filter is working properly then a damp white cotton cloth will come up clean if run around the carb mouth.
My advise s always get a tub of rubber grease and apply a smeer to the filter ( not the elbow ) insert the filter & do up finger tight .
IT is a fundamentally bad design and would work better is the filter side was smaller diameter and you had to push the filter in hard to stretch the elbow .
To be on the safe side change that elbow every 3 to 5 years because once the rubber goes a bit hard it will not be able to make an airtight seal
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bertmobile1, you said use some rubber grease to the filter (not the elbow). Makes sense to me; good point. I already have on hand some Lucas White Lithium Grease in a tube. Will that be ok ?
 
jcworks said:
bertmobile1, you said use some rubber grease to the filter (not the elbow). Makes sense to me; good point. I already have on hand some Lucas White Lithium Grease in a tube. Will that be ok ?
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Bertsmobile1 is not on here anymore. Super smart guy, tons of valuable knowledge for all of us to sponge up. Hope he is ok. Never heard why he left???? Huge asset to this board and to me personally.

Believe you are talking about sealing an air filter better? Forget the grease, better than nothing. I use GE 100% clear silicone caulk. I run a bead all around the perimeter of the filter. It water/air/dirt and so on seals the filter to the filter holder. Also a finger dap on the intake manifold and all intake gasket areas. Leave the filter alone until you notice she takes a couple more cranks than usual to start or she feels low in power, maybe blowing black smoke. Then install slash glue a new filter on with silicone. Got to get drastic about keeping dirt and grit out of the engine. Mowers are filthy machines. And it's basically time to scalp my yard again......... 🤧
 
slomo said:
Bertsmobile1 is not on here anymore. Super smart guy, tons of valuable knowledge for all of us to sponge up. Hope he is ok. Never heard why he left???? Huge asset to this board and to me personally.

Believe you are talking about sealing an air filter better? Forget the grease, better than nothing. I use GE 100% clear silicone caulk. I run a bead all around the perimeter of the filter. It water/air/dirt and so on seals the filter to the filter holder. Also a finger dap on the intake manifold and all intake gasket areas. Leave the filter alone until you notice she takes a couple more cranks than usual to start or she feels low in power, maybe blowing black smoke. Then install slash glue a new filter on with silicone. Got to get drastic about keeping dirt and grit out of the engine. Mowers are filthy machines. And it's basically time to scalp my yard again......... 🤧
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Thanks slomo. I did not know he'd left. Yes, you are right.....he is a super smart guy with mower engines. He helped me tremendously when I had an issue with the transaxles not disengaging when I pushed the rods in on my transaxles. (* Yes, on my Toro you have to push them in not out to disengage the trans). Thats just the opposite of most. It had been that way for years....since I bought it, which made it almost impossible to roll manually. Talking with bertsmobile1 he informed me that I had to work with them and push them manually because something was blocking them from going all the way in. I did as he said and also called the Hydro-Gear tech people as bert recommended. Between the two of them I realized that the rods on each side had to be pushed in further and harder than I should have to do. Bottom line was after I "broke through" the resistance (whatever it was) I had no more problems and any time I wanted to disengage the trans I did so easily. TWO local Toro dealers did not know this and told me NOTHING was wrong, it was all normal......terrible ! But bert and the Hydro-Gear tech advised correctly. The internet has become a very valuable tool. We can get on here and bounce stuff off each other and get real answers. Even half way around the world !! .....which I think bert is in Australia if I'm not mistaken.

I don't know what has happened with bert . It seems I recall maybe...(or maybe not) he had some physical issues that comes along with age for all of us. Not sure about that though....just a possible, faint memory of something he may have mentioned..
 
The number of hours you can get out of a machine is dependent on the service that is done to it.

Change you air filter and spark plug every couple of years and change the oil and filter once per season.

A good quality 10W-30 is the most common oil used. sae 30 requires more warmup time, but it works great also.

Being that you are in a 90-degree climate much of the time, 10W-40 would work very well.

20W-50 Is too heavy of an oil in my opinion, it is better suited for older cast iron engine designs.

As for name brand of the oil, I do not have any particular preference. The Walmart house brand oils are made by Warren oil company, Exxon Mobile and Pennzoil.
 
I did some searching for Bert back when he no longer was showing up. If I found the correct person, he passed away. Loss to this forum.
 
Auto Doc's said:
The number of hours you can get out of a machine is dependent on the service that is done to it.

Change you air filter and spark plug every couple of years and change the oil and filter once per season.

A good quality 10W-30 is the most common oil used. sae 30 requires more warmup time, but it works great also.

Being that you are in a 90-degree climate much of the time, 10W-40 would work very well.

20W-50 Is too heavy of an oil in my opinion, it is better suited for older cast iron engine designs.

As for name brand of the oil, I do not have any particular preference. The Walmart house brand oils are made by Warren oil company, Exxon Mobile and Pennzoil.
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I change oil each season. The manual says up to 10W40 in hot conditions. One thing I've noticed is the local shops are all recommending 20W50 down here. I dont know if they're saying that just to sell another mower to you sooner or what. But they're all recommending it down here because of the heat. Anyway, I bought Kawasak KTech 20W50 and have changed the oil already. I think it'll be ok, hope so
 
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Rivets said:
I did some searching for Bert back when he no longer was showing up. If I found the correct person, he passed away. Loss to this forum.
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Thank you Rivets . I'm sure people on here will be saddened at that. I know he meant a lot to me, and helped me tremendously.
 
Sorry to hear about Bertsmobile. I often enjoyed what he had to say.

Oil... I used to fret over what to put in my OPE. Now, I just use oil from the mfr. I use Kohler oil in my Kohlers, and Briggs oil in my Briggs. Yeah, it cost a bit more, but I know the oils have the right formulations.
 
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