Newbie with Snapper questions

[natenkiki2004]

Hey all. Pretty cool forum, I've been here a few time researching things and it's helped out. I have a few questions about a Snapper push-mower I have. Before I ask though, I wanna say that this IS my first mower and I don't know a lot about engines but I am willing to learn and not afraid to get dirty (I am slightly afraid of breaking something though ). I've never really done work on engines before aside from what I've done on this and the occasional help with bleeding brakes or changing oil on a car (more of just being an extra set of hands). On with the questions!

Off of Craigslist last year (about 8 months ago or so) I bought 2 mowers. One was a small Craftsman that had serious issues, it's now junked. The other was a Snapper HWPS2660RV and having never owned a mower before, it's a pretty big and daunting beast. Neither ran but for $40 for both, I figured it was worth it. Brought them home and they sat until about a month ago. Now, the guy selling it to me had moved into an apartment a few months before I bought them so I'm guessing that the Snapper sat for at least a year (with several months at or below freezing) without anything done to it. I know the gas tank was half full so we're talking pretty old gas had been sitting in it.

About a month ago, a buddy of mine came over and recommended a guy to work on it to get it running. This guy put a new fuel line on it and welded the gas tank (it was previously held on by a bent coat hanger , not my work). He brought it back and said it starts with a squirt of starting fluid then runs fine. It sat for about a week until my buddy came over again and helped dump the old fuel, old oil and change the spark plug & oil filter. After doing that and running over half a can of carb/choke cleaner in through the air intake, it starts after a few pulls and runs pretty nicely. I've put about 8 hours of mowing on it and it never once died or had any major issues.

Now, for my questions, I have a video of me starting and doing various things with it:
YouTube - Snapper HWPS2660RV Mower
1. It can take anywhere from 2 to 10 pulls to start it, in the video it started on the 4th. Is that normal/average? I can shoot some starting fluid in and it roars on the first pull and doesn't die which is pretty nice.
2. After taking it off the choke position and running it on full speed, it seems to run a little rough. Again, I'm nothing close to an expert on engines but in the video you'll see that it seems like the engine is making it's own corrections in the linkage altering the mixture and making it run slightly rough every 2 seconds or so. It doesn't die and runs fine that way but that doesn't seem very normal to me, is it?
3. There doesn't seem to be a lot of room in the throttle, when I lower the speed near the "low" (turtle) setting, it just dies (as seen in the video). This, combined with 2, makes me wonder if the linkages or something need adjusting. Does that seem to be the case?
4. Towards the end of the video there's pictures, I highlighted an area (bottom of the OHV plate) that looks like it's been slowly seeping oil. When it was brought home, the whole corner was dark and looked like a nice coat of oil saturated dust was there. I have since cleaned it off to observe how "fast" it leaks. So far I haven't seen a drip. Is this something to worry about? Is it easy to fix?

I think that's it. If you see or hear something in the video that isn't quite right, feel free to speak up, I'm all ears when it comes to getting this thing running optimally. Thanks.

 

[BKBrown]

Welcome to the Forum !
Don't know much specifically about Snapper, but the first thing I would do is get the old gas out and put in fresh with some fuel system cleaner like Seafoam or Gumout (not too much for a small gas tank) Since it runs OK once started I believe the main thing it would need is just fresh gas and clean up the fuel system.

 

[natenkiki2004]

Thanks

Yea, about a month ago it got serviced with a new spark plug, oil, oil filter and gas. The old oil and gas was drained first. I bought a gallon then and burned through it in 8 hours. I just bought some more gas and added Techron Concentrate Plus to it and that's what's in the tank now. I was going to run Seafoam through it and I still might.

I don't know if it's the physical dirt/grease cleaning I did or the Techron but the engine seems stronger. Like right after the stuff was replaced on it, the engine would almost die when I engaged the blade (in fact it did several times when I forgot I was on slow engine speed) but now (as you see in the video) it runs quite a bit better.

It's still only had 8 hours operating time since things have been replaced, now that it has Techron in it, maybe it will be really smooth in another 8 hours. I just don't know enough about small engines, aside from what I read on forums like this. I figured a good video explaining my questions should be pretty good for the more experienced people to figure out what I could do to make this bad boy run at it's best.

 

[natenkiki2004]

Anyone? I know the engine is the Robin EH18V. Would it be good/wise to clean out the carb? Are they generally hard to disassemble and reassemble for inexperienced people? It seems like a pretty straightforward thing to do.

 

[KennyV]

That continuous adjustment is the governor doing what it is designed to do... it is running with no real load so it's opening and closing the throttle plate slightly to maintain the engine speed you have selected...

The bottom end of the control is not necessarily going to be linear, BUT you should be able to idle ... It seems to be going from mid speed to off with no idle setting... (you will never be mowing at idle) but it's nice to have it operate smoothly through all throttle settings...
Older carbs had needle valve settings to adjust for this.
You most likely could take the carb of and get it back on... Just take several pictures of your linkage... on the carb and the governor... those little wire rods can be a bit tricky if you are not familiar with how they attach...

Something that I was hearing in your video... that tinny rattle, (sheet metal) rattle... that would really bother me... It has to be in the front covers I think... I would Isolate it and remove it... :smile:KennyV

 

[natenkiki2004]

Hmmmm I wouldn't have thought that much adjustment was normal. But, again, I'm not a mechanically inclined guy (I'm a computer technician) and applying my logic doesn't always work. Thanks for the info on that as well as putting my mind at ease.

The throttle adjustment is a little sticky at times, I've added a couple drops of lube to the moving points in hopes to smooth it out, it helped a little. It doesn't really bug me that it can't idle down really low but it is nice to have EVERYTHING working the way it's supposed to. I haven't really come across anything in either the mower or engine manual on adjustments for all those linkages so I'm hesitant to touch them since it does run ok. Same thing for the carb. Are you aware of any gaskets that might need replacing on it or are there o-rings that I can just re-use? I do have the part numbers in the engine manual so I guess if somethings ripped/cracked I can find another one. I think for this season I'm just going to run it as-is, it's only had 8 hours on it since it was stored for so long so it may just need another break-in/cleaning period to run it's best. I'll think about the carb cleaning as a winter project.

The sheet metal rattle... the video isn't great quality so I'm not sure if that's just low sound quality or something actually loose. I'll have to fire it up again and have a listen around. I know the owner before busted the gas tank off it's mounts (and actually tore some metal in the process) and it was welded back on with some flat iron bar pieces, not using the original mount. That might be what's rattling.

Thanks again for your reply