Great looking mower, You have inspired me to take do a little repairing, saving mowers from the trash heap and reselling them. I came across a guy last week trying to get rid of 2 mowers that were not running sitting in his garage-one is a Yard Machines by MTD 11A-504C062 and the other is a Snapper LP21550V both with Briggs and Stratton engines. I gave him $20 for them. Already got the Yard Machines running with a Carb diaphragm/gasket and primer bulb replacement. The Snapper when I took the carb off it is so corroded I am going to have a hard time cleaning it, but that is ok. This past weekend I found 2 mowers (1 Ryobi 961160002 02 with Briggs and Stratton and 1 Yard-Man by MTD with 1P65M0 MTD Engine) and a walk behind Bolens gas edger with Briggs and Stratton for sale for $35. Neither mower was running, got the Yard-Man running with carb clean and the Ryobi will need and carb overhaul (been sitting for awhile). The Bolens edger starts and runs fine but needs the blade angle lever and spring ($12 parts). I think I am off to a good start. I plan on keeping the edger and selling the mowers. This is very enjoyable! Thanks for the updates on all your projects!!!!
Glad you enjoy it and that its inspired you!
I recently got a chance to get some work done on the machines.
First up was that Craftsman. For some reason it would not prime no matter how many times I pressed the primer. I'm not sure how or why, but the problem ended up being the bracket that holds the primer bulb and mounts to the carburetor. It looks perfectly fine, but even after replacing the bulb it still wouldn't work. I borrowed one from an unused engine and it worked. While I was working on it I finally figured out how to replace that broken piece.
This is the repair, and after much work it did seem to be strong, though ugly. However, I've been concerned about its long term durability and didn't want it coming back to me broken. I had the carb off and was just looking it over (I though it was the reason it wasn't priming at first), when I realized that the butterfly valve is just shoved through a slit in the plastic shaft. All it too to remove it was a gentle tug with a pair of pliers. All that time I spent trying to figure out how to remove it and then trying to fix it, and the solution took only a couple seconds! I replaced it with a good one from another carburetor, put it all together, and she's as good as new.
Today was really nice out, so I did some more work. I decided to tackle that 2-stroke Toro today. I figured out that the grinding noise it would make when the recoil was fully tightened down was coming from the bolts being too long and rubbing the flywheel, so I put spacers on and shorter bolts. Replaced the worn blade and put the shield back on and mowed the lawn with it for the first time. Sometimes it would seem like the blade would stop spinning and would clog up, but I guess the reason was because the thing bags really well and fills the big bag up quickly and since the blade is belt driven, it'll slip when there's blockage, I guess. I'm not really family with how these older Toros work. I do really like the drive system, which when in gear doesn't move until you start pushing, so when you make a turn the wheels aren't spinning and digging into the ground.
Wish I had a mulch plug for it though.
After that I decided to tackle a Craftsman push mower I got as trade for hat small Murray I sold. I didn't get any before pictures, which is too bad, but this poor thing was beat to hell. I was prepared to declare this thing a total loss. The brackets that hold the handlebars and wheels on were both so loose that the handlebars couldn't stay upright and the whole assembly would just rotate freely. All of the movement had caused the tabs that help hold the bracket in place to tear into the metal deck, and on one side the metal was so worn around the main bolt it was almost big enough for the nut to come out.
The problem seems to be that when it was assembled, he neglected to put the secondary retaining bolts in to keep the bracket secure. I used 1/4 bolts with locking nuts, straightened the deck, replaced an axle bolt after it sheered, and used a big washer to help compensate for the enlarged hole where the axle bolt goes through. I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the results. Once I got it all back together the brackets were nice and tight with no play, and the wheels and handle bars had no play either.
Here's a look at the repair.
And here it is after the repairs were completed.
Next up is to see if I can get it to run. As you may have noticed, it has no muffler and must have been running rich. At first I thought the genius had taken the muffler off for whatever reason, but closer inspections hows that the base of the muffler is still threaded in, it blew off someone! It took a several tries with vise grips but I managed to get it off.
So now it has a replacement muffler on it. I still need to get an air cleaner assembly, clean out the carb and tank and replace the plug to see if it'll fire. We'll see!
Finally, I wiped the Brute down and put it in the basement for the winter. I have enough in the garage to use for the rest of the season.
