Flywheel Key ???????

I have no idea, but I will find out tomorrow and post the results.....

Monday, Lee brought a push mower over to the big shop... He called me and told me that the rope was slacking and wasn't acting right, He said the engine ran fine though..... He also said a couple bolts were missing....... So he said he wanted his mower, Tightened Up in a sense...

This is a 4.5 HP Briggs... 10H902 The old bullet proof ones that I like.....

Well Tuesday I got to the big shop and started on it...... The main long tank bolt was missing and 2 air shroud bolts, That I saw right away.... Ok I got it on the lift and started to take the shroud off and Johnny noticed that the flywheel guard was missing along with the bushing in it .......So I come back to my shop and got one... I already had the bolts with me since I had a heads up..... Oh I noticed it had the wrong spark plug in there.... A chainsaw plug and it was loose, I got it out with my hand..... New plug went in....

I get back to the big shop and I got it bolted up and attempted to start her up... The gas in the tank smelled good and it primed up good with the primer bulb...... The fricking brake cable didn't budge..... I tried once more and the lever broke.... Oh Booooy...So I get the big spring off of the kill brake cluster, and noticed a starter pawl in there... I go back to my shop and get a new lever that's a match..... Johnny was oiling the cable and got it free... We worked it well enough to make me satisfied, so I didn't get a new cable .....

Now I get the recoil assembly apart and put the pawl back in... I guess they tried starting the engine with the brake on and all that CHIT is plastic so something is gonna give and flex, a pawl will come out, I have seen that tooooo many times.... Hence the slacking starter rope.....

Now for the Grande Finale........... Primed it and 1st pull it fired right up..... I cut some grass around a few boats and then Johnny cut some more grass. Tall CHIT toooo ... Ok I'm satisfied with my repair... So I go back to my shop and write up a invoice.... Only 64 bux for all of it...

Today he picks the mower up and starts it....... He also cuts grass for 3 to 5 minutes with it.... Now here's the kicker I was working on another mower and my shop phone rings.... It was Lee... Hey Boo my mower won't start.... So I go to his house with my tools and a carb kit plus a another new plug..... I got a Oregon so say spark tester 42-031 that is supposed to be the best..... I used to see the fire from a few feet away with no issues... He was jerking to much on the engine so I pulled and he saw fire...

I take the tank off and carb and put a kit on it..... Got it all back together and it's a no go....... Fire fuel and compression..... So the rope did not pull back on me or him........ Tomorrow I am getting the flywheel off and checking the key....

Not having a kick back doesn't mean that a key isn't intact....... Who agrees ??????????

Tomorrow tells the story.............

Plus Tard Mes Amies ~!~!~!

If the key has sheared and the flywheel has spun more than 60 degrees, you very likely will not have a kickback.

Well here is an update ya'll....... Yes I am up late as usual........ Sis in Law was here and kept us up late again.... So that gave me a reason to work on this thing LOL... and then made a video on the repair........

Video is not up yet so I will just say It is DONE.........

Yepper it was the flywheel key............ Just a tad sheared though... I have seen them a lil worse than this one and still ran.....

I checked the air gap on the coil also, because the flywheel was shiny.... Way tooooo close for comfort.. LOL I checked for side to side play and there was none....... Mags are very strong also.....

Also the intake tube bolts were about 1/2 to 3/4 turn loose..... Which would be common for a mower this old.....

Anyway it fired up 2nd pull................

Plus Tard Mes Amies ~!~!

Here's the video link to the final fix....... It seems that when he started it he went into some tall grass and hit a hidden piece of wood.... I wish he would have said something while I was at his house..........

https://youtu.be/HejRZItbKCk

As a rule lawn mowers are the most abused piece of machinery I can think of. I have never understood why folks cannot see. That with a very small amount of maintenance it will last for a long time. Believe me newer mowers will not out last the older hardware..... Never mind all the electrical crap some have installed, and plastic.

Nope buying new instead of taking care of a machine is not a very wise plan..

pep

Hey, you are also having fun with keyways.

Pep...they call it planned obsolescence and I am tired of more and more stuff being designed that way. My favorite is two or three years off the assembly line and you cannot get parts...hilarious.

Mark in Indiana said:

Hey, you are also having fun with keyways.

Pep...they call it planned obsolescence and I am tired of more and more stuff being designed that way. My favorite is two or three years off the assembly line and you cannot get parts...hilarious.

Click to expand...

Actually it is greed, ignorance & stupidity
Greed, we all want some thing for nothing so the cheapest will always be the best
Ignorance As we move into the digital age peoples ability at access the quality of build & design diminishes at an alarming rate
Supidity people still buy lottery tickets regardles of the fact that they have a 1000x better chance of being shot by a random passer buy, a 25000x better chance of being killed in a motor vehicle collision.

So you get some blithering mechanical idiot like say Paris Hilton to stand next to a piece of junk and 5,000,000 people will buy it.
Price yours 50¢ cheaper than the competitors machine and you get 5,000,000 more sales
Offer good value for money and you go broke.

Apparently the faries come in after dark into mower factories & sprinkle pixie dust al over the place so mowers magically appear at no cost to the factory whatsoever then benevolent truck driver ship them all over the country for the fun of it, cause they are all nice people who really enjoy driving big trucks that run on air and never need new tyres just so you, who expect to get a pay rise every year for doing exactly the same amount of the same work as you did last year ( cause you are such a special person ) thus you HAVE THE RIGHT to pay less for your mower every year.

Is this really aimed at me?

I worked as a machinst building parts for Ford. I have witnessed in many cases the de-evolution of a quality part. I know what the hell I'm talking about.

Find a Ford engineer and ask them if they don't do it on a regular basis. My father busted his *** for 42 years in the Navistar plant. Before that it was International Harvester, but the important thing to remember is Ford twisted their nuts into doing horribly stupid **** and it cost the company. Powdered rods!!! Substandard fuel systems compared to the identical engine in the Navistar line-up. I can go on and on and on and on, AND that is just FORD, but it is absolutely called Planned Obsolescence and it does not mean I'm stupid, greedy or ignorant. I just joined and posted here, but I don't have to take your ****...

My LX176 is 26 years old. I see a few design errors in it, but thats okay it wasn't done with the same intent-to-fail as a lot of the junk I see today.

On the other hand if you were actually agreeing with me or were trying to make a counterpoint find another way to do it. Because you suck. Even stranger, if you thought you knew what I was thinking...think again, *******.