Honda HRX217VKA Submersed In Flood!

jsalis57

Well-Known Member
I am going to take a Honda HRX217VKA from a friend to bring back to life after being completely submerged in flood waters after torrential rains in Columbus Ohio. This happened just a few days ago so there should not be too much of a rust issue with any components to deal with. My plan is to remove all gas and oil, clean everything around the flywheel, remove the carburetor bowl or maybe the carburetor completely and spark plug, inspect, clean and go from there. Of course I will look at the controls and cables too re-lubricate as needed.We'll see how robust these mowers really are if I can resurrect it!

I will update here to share my results.
 
Was the mower sitting for a long time before the flood incident? Was the mower running good before?

This should be fairly easy to revive. There are no pesky electronics to worry with.

You should change the oil, run it for a couple of minutes and then change it again. Second time run it a little longer like 15 minutes and change the oil again. The idea is to maximize lubrication and eliminate all moisture.

The fuel tank and carburetor will need to come off and be dried out well along with cleaning the engine after the top cover is removed.
 
drain oil and gas, Replace. Dry off with leaf blower. Place in sun all day. Use motorcycle cable lubricator for best cable lube. Add pressure wash if covered in mud. Lube axles and transmission if you have the time. Don't forget to remove spark plug and spin. Add some atf pr mmo into cylinder and spin again.
 
Mower was running fine, did an initial hose off and drained gas tank through bowl. Sat in sun for a while will do oil tomorrow. I suspect it will be fine.
 
I had a HRR216VKA that was submerged twice. The funny thing was there was no water in the gas. I did do several oil changes and lube all external moving parts. The mower worked great for over 5 years until I sold it and upgraded to a HRN. You will be fine.
 
Thanks for your reply.

I did what I was going to do and the mower runs great! Change your oil twice and will change it one more time with Honda oil.

After all that said and done upon close inspection, I found the deck is cracked at one of the motor mounts. Now that changes the course of future with this mower entirely. I did a little research and it does happen with these decks, it’s not super common but now that I have it with a cracked motor mount, I’m not sure at this point what I wanna do.
 
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