Recent content by benaford

Man, such a great idea. Mechanical things engage a part of our brains that seems to be falling asleep due to the solid state, electrical nature of so many products now. Something about the satisfying click of a ratchet driver in your hands or the smooth spinning of a freshly cleaned and oiled...

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed reading. Tractor is up and running fairly smoothly now. Especially considering it's age and how long it sat out in the elements with no maintenance. Two weeks ago, I was mowing with it and noticed a grinding noise coming from the deck. I assume there was a stick or...

I'm having a double portion of humble pie tonight. In my frustration with the fuel system, I started scouring youtube for information about pulse fuel pumps - trying to understand how they work and determine if that could be my issue. I found a vid of a guy pulsing air in the breather tube with...

Ok, double check my connections here, but I THINK I have the hoses hooked up correctly. It has been working with this configuration, so I don't think the hoses are hooked up the wrong way. I did try blowing on the in/out lines and they seem to be free of obstruction. Is there any way that the...

While I was waiting for the gasket covers to come in this week, I bought a feeler gauge and adjusted the valve clearance. I changed the oil and filter and installed a new breather tube. Today, I put in the new gasket covers, buttoned everything back up and attempted to start the engine. However...

Don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but I've come this far so I might as well see it through. I found a couple of videos on Youtube detailing the ins and outs of adjusting the governor. After some tweaking, I got the engine to respond to movement in the throttle. That issue...

After some more research, I'm starting to suspect the governor could be the culprit. When I was cleaning up the engine, I removed the gov. linkage and didn't take note of how it was indexed in relation to the gov shaft that runs into the engine. I'm thinking that when I re-installed everything...

Ok, newest issue. I got the throttle to semi-work. Engine would start, throttle up and down. Good enough. I put the mower deck back on, fired it up and to my surprise, everything was functioning as intended. After about five minutes of mowing, the engine seemed to rev a little bit and then it...

Yeah, here's my latest update. Once I replaced the fuel pump, vacuum tube and battery, I attempted to start with no luck. I pulled the plugs and checked them again and I could definitely see them firing. On a whim, I adjusted the coils down closer to the flywheel and re-installed the plugs...

That's a great job on reclaiming your mower and I appreciate the input. I was googling that motor and I see it around $1,600. I don't think I would be willing to go that far to salvage this mower, but maybe if I found one second hand.

No, I did not remove the flywheel.

Weekend update - using the repair kit I ordered, I was able to drill out the bad starter bolt threads, put in new inserts and mount up the starter. I'm still waiting on the new fuel pump an vacuum tube, but I dropped in my old battery and put some fuel in the tank for a test fire. The starter...

If the safety switch is bad, will the starter engage at all? I'm not sure where it breaks the circuit.

I hadn't thought about the compression test. What does that involve?

Will do!