Recent content by Hammermechanicman

You really need to find the proper wiring diagram for your engine and start st the ignition switch and see if you have battery voltage from the S terminal to ground when you turn the key to the start position. If so you need to wotk your way through the start inhibit switches till you find out...

My lawn boy is going strong for 25+ years. No self propelled, no electric start. It just spins a chunk of semi sharp metal near the ground. Simple may not be better but lasts a heck of a lot longer. Only thing that has worn out is the wheels.

A couple days ago 4 Speedway stations got gas with diesel in it. Folks are paying thousands to fix cars. Probably thousands of lawsuits coming. Been on the news for a few days.

Had a guy last year complain his JD zero turn was running bad after i worked on it. Long story short he is a "green" warrior. Whatever the hell he put in tbe fuel tank wasn't gasoline. Would barely burn when you put a flame to it. He would not tell me what is was. Swore it was pump gas. BS it was.

Fist bump bro.

Have you removed the muffler and checked the piston for scoring?

To set tracking make sure rear tire pressure is equal. Push both handles all the way forward on level ground if machines does not track straight adj wheel speed till machines tracks straight then adj levers to be inline. Page 26 and 27 of owners manual.

If you have a Recycler with the little black plastic door on the side you will probably never be happy with it. The mower deck is designed to be a mulcher. Which it does pretty well. They add the little side discharge as a selling point but it can't handle more than about a half inch or so of...

You say you replaced a carb gasket. Are you absolutely sure you got all the carb linkage hooked up correctly? Did you remove the govenor arm from the shaft? If you didn't disturb the govenor arm on the shaft you probably have a linkage issue.

When you did the test bertsmobile1 told you where you open the carb butterfly manually and the engine stumbles I would suspect the main jet in the carb needs cleaned. You might remove and clean the carb before pulling the head to check the valves.

http://www.clickitandstickit.com/murray/ Maybe not cheap but if you are looking to do a resto...

Check the battery to engine ground connection. If the ground connection has some resistance when you crank the engine whatever ground there is will try to carry the starter current. Melting the module is a sign it is passing way too much current.

You can remove the flywheel and then apply air pressure to the oil fill tube while pinching off the crankcase breather hose. Only apply a couple PSI of air pressure. You should be able to see where the leak is. You can apply some soapy water to help find the leak.

When it comes a RTV sealant i have switched over to Permatex The Right Stuff. It is a little more expensive than Ultra ones but over 100 uses and no leaks. Especially on the Courage valve covers. Like AVB said, finger tight for 12 hours then torque. I finger tight for an hour or two then...

The auto choke is working as it should. Thanks for the tip.

It is like the one in post 7 except it has the auto choke. I will get the engine numbers tomorrow. I have a couple riders to pickup for annual maint tomorrow so i will be out in the shop tomorrow afternoon working.

The fuel is fresh but i will dump it to morrow and try some i bought last week. Tks.

Hey Rivets, throw me a bone here. I have one of the briggs with the plastic carb (auto choke model) that i have put 2 new carbs. Came in for hard starting and surging. New carb, once it starts it runs fine with no surging but you have to use some starting fluid to get it to start. After it runs...

There is something wrong with that ignition switch and connector. Pull them apart and post pics of both switch and connector.

These mowers with 25hp engines on a 48" deck will do a pretty good job on one cylinder.

The one time i have had a mower in the shop with both coils bad it was because one coil had failed sometime and the large V twin had enough power the homeowner didn't realize it was running on one cylinder. When the second coil died he brought it in. Could tell it had a dead cylinder for quite a...

The Harbor Freight Predator engines are made by Lifan in China. As far as I can tell the are an exact copy of Honda GX engines. The parts will interchange on Honda engines.

Most mowers will start and run without a blade. May have and erratic idle. The heavier flywheel or mower blade stores energy to help the engine not bog down when a load is applied. Back in the day when i built 5hp Briggs go cart racing engines in the stock appearing and outlaw stock classes i...

Most crankshafts take standard 1/4" key. They can usually be gotten at a hardware store.

The voltage regulator really has nothing to do with the ignition system if i read the service manual correctly. Question: do the coils have a single tab for a single wire and not a multi wire connector? If so remove the wire from the coils. This eliminates something grounding out the coils. Set...

If the engine is running at proper speed sounds like the AVR (automatic voltage regulator) is bad. Did you shut it down with a heavy load on it or start it up with one? That can take out the AVR.

Bigger hammer?

The whining is fluid bypassing the pump pistons. Put some 20W-50 in it and hope for the best. The pistons and pump are already starting to score. Thicker fluid may help. If it is a K46 that is called fhe whine of death.

Is it a metal fuel tank? If tank is rusty you will have a hard time getting all the rust out. Been there too many times. Check the tank vent. Start it with the air cleaner off and when it starts to die spray some carb cleaner or starting fluid into the carb. If it runs better for a few seconds...

Hey, i hit something with my new mower and now it shakes real bad. You will fix it under warranty. Right? Hey, i left the key on for a few days on my new mower. Battery is dead. It's under warranty isn't it? Hey, i forgot to put oil in the new mower and it locked up. I did put oil in after the...

Interesting conversation. I have had people ask if i do warranty work on the cheap mowers from the big box stores. I don't have any affiliation to any mfgr or distributor other than tax free accounts from some parts houses. I tell them sorry but no. Everybody pays. I have heard some horror...

Is it puffing lots of smoke in the air cleaner housing fron the valve cover? Possible blown head gasket.

Clean the ground from batt to engine. Check for blown fuse or corroded fuse connection

Your surging problem is the idle circuit in the carb is blocked. With no load the engine will be running on the idle circuit unless the engine is near or at full throttle. Under load it runs on the high speed circuit. Watch the top of the throttle shaft when it is surging. It will be bouncing...

Remove the starter and see if you can take a screwdriver and turn the starter gear and rotate the starter armature. If not locked up take a pair of jumper cables and battery neg to the frame and touch the battery pos cable to the starter terminal. If starter doesn't spin bad starter. Sparks and...

Good stuff from Rivets. One of the first things i do when i have a no crank issue is check the battery and then if it has a separate atart relay i simply take a car jumper cable and jump the 2 large terminals on the relay. If engine cranks over there is a problem with either the relay or wiring...

I have rebuilt a couple K46's over the years for customers. Relatively new JD mowers that were worth fixing. Lots of talk on the web about the craptacular K46. Some folks have gotten more life by changing a thicker oil. According to "some guy on the internet" tuff torq ships the trans dry and...

Cha-ching https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tuff-Torq-Repair-Kit-1A646099601-for-K46BE-Hydrostatic-Transmission-7A646084121-/293061281645

The D170 i believe has a K46 hydrostatic trans. They are notorious for crapping out. They usually start whining and the whining will get worse and the tractor will lose speed and not want to move uphill. The whining is the fluid bypassing the pistons in the pump. You can get the parts from...

I am in the bert camp on tbis one. I can get most flywheels off with the hammer method. I have a half dozen different pullers but the hammer gets most the work. Tappy tap tap.

You could have a bad bearing on the armature or i have seen a generator sit long enough the laminations on the armature and field windings rusted to the point of binding up the generator. You are probably going to have to split the engine and alternator and see what is binding.

Don't use the plugs to check spark. Remove the plugs from the coil wire and insert a bolt in the coil wire and hold that 1/4" from ground and crank it. If won't jump the gap sand any rust off the flywheel magnets and adj the air gap if still weak spark probably needs new coils but both bad at...

Welcome. I have remnants of a suburban 12 and i have a ST12 i want to restore and i have another ST12 with an MTD snowblower Frankensteined on it.

Are you saying when you turn the key the engine does not crank? Dows the starter solenoid have 3 or 4 terminals? When you say harness was it the engine or mower wiring or both?

Back in 1978 i passed the novice ticket. I could copy code at 20 WPM. Oh yeah.....i had been a morse interceptor in the army for a few years. Had to pass 18 WPM to graduate morse class. The guy giving the morse test couldn't believe it. Is the filter issue size or a thread/flange issue the...

Long long ago in a land far far away i was KA8FRO. Blew the finals out of my Dentron radio, got married, had kids and gave up on the radios. Too many other things happening. I just use Briggs filters on the Kaw engines.

Are you the same AVB on the OPEforum.com forum??

Be sure to get a new all steel cam. Don't try to save money. Not if the plastic cam will fail but when it will fail.

I think the briggs 492932S will cross with the Kaw filter.

The red and white GX series engines are the good ones. All the new GC series stuff is built to a price point. All the engine manufacturers have recently come out with "new and improved" engines. They are all pretty much a POS. The chineese Honda GX clones are much better engines than most any...

Have you test that you are getting 12v ar tbe actuator when you hit the lift switch? Might want to check the electrics before dropping 600.

At the very least you will need 2 DP bearing assembly part #120048. Grasshoppers use an odd bearing. Clean all the grease off. Check the wheel hub and thru bolt for wear. Most likely it just needs new bearings. You need the center spacer and the thru bolt and nut. The rest is from the bearings.

Or the people who bring the saw in with the chain on backwards or the mower with the blade on upside down. Or the people who bring in equipment out of gas and say it won't start.

Since you changed the carb i would suspect the auto choke system having a problem. Spark and compression shouldn't be changing that narrows it down to fuel/air issue.

Some guy told me some micro drills off ebay are your friend. Just say'n.?

What type of choke does the engine have? What you did to the valve seat is called staking.

Consider changing the cam belt while in there.

If it says Courage or Confidant on it run don't walk away from it as fast as you can. All the new Kohler stuff is junk. Another good brand now in the toilet.

When you say got spark. Will the spark jump a 1/4" gap? Pulling out the plug and grounding the threads and watching for spark across the plug gap is not a good test. If the spark will jump a 1/4" gap in air it will run the engine. Always always always when trouble shooting a no start issue put a...

What brand? JD decks in good condition go for around 200 to 300 for the LT stuff. For a GT or bigger stuff 500 and up if in good shape. Sears Crapsman, MTD, AYP, Murray and the like about 100. Last time i priced out just the deck shell for a 42" Crapsman it was 500 for the bare deck. By the...

One of the things CARB addresses is fuel vapors. You are now seeing carbon canister evaporative control systems on commercial mowers and all kinds of goofy tank vents small engines. Gotta love the government. EPA regulates what comes out the muffler and CARB regulates how the gas is stored in...

If you want to check for parasitic draw you need to connect a milliamp meter between one of the battery terminals and the wire that connects to the battery and measure, if any, the current draw. I doubt if the problem is parasitic draw. When the battery was checked did they just do a voltage...

When you say powered do you mean the wheels are locked or if you move the operator levers with the engine running the wheels turn? I think gravely used the hydro gear zt2800 in that series of mowers. The bypass lever is on the top of the hydro unit. Be sure the bypass levers are all the way in...

Oops, my mistake. I thought he said the wheels were always not powered.

Since it is surging the govenor is working. That carb has no idle circuit. If the engine runs slow enough to not be on the high speed circuit it bounce on the govenor. You need to adjust the govenor spring anchor point so that the engine runs about 3400 RPM. Unless you change to a different carb...

if both hydros do nothing be sure to check the drive belt. Only thing common to the hydros is the drive belt. If the belt is good and the bypass rods and levers are working and ot in the bypass position you got priblems with both hydros.

Thanks

There should be a bowl drain plug on the carb. Pull the rope start about 20 times then remove the bowl drain plug and see if the fuel drains fron the float bowl. If it does not check vacum pulse hose. If pulse hose is good probably bad pump or bad fuel line or filter. If the float bowl was full...

I used to flip mowers. Not any more. Most folks don't want to, like the man said, pay more than a couple hundred dollars for a used rider. Even if someone gives me an old rider by the time i put parts in it like blades, filters and belts and 3 or 4 hours of my time at my shop rate of $40/hr i am...

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All the small shops around me have closed. My shop is a 24x24. Building and i am a small one man shop. I am retired so fixing mowers does not pay all the bills. I make enough to buy most the toys snd tools i want. My suggestion is become a sole proprietorship LLC, get a tax ID #, get liability...

Hi, stumbled across this forum. I run a small one man power equipment repair shop.