Recent content by Richard Milhous

The choke depends on the muffler bearing for proper operation. Go to your nearest repair shop and ask them for a muffler bearing.

The primer bulb can look perfect and still be worthless.

No. Fuel has to get from the bowl to the cylinder, and there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. Clogged passages/jets. Vacuum leak. Intake valve seat loose. Intake valve not opening enough. Valve timing off. Choke open. Throttle not open. It's not just fuel/air/spark. Fuel and air have to be...

Cats ain't worth ¢ for killing mice. Get some snakes. And some poison. Twenty years old? My main pusher is thirty. Hours/miles matter; age only a little. Abuse matters; so does maintenance. And original quality. Since my wife isn't reading over my shoulder, I'll say this plain: Age don't...

More likely it will fire during the compression stage and cause a violent backlash. I don't think an engine firing during the intake stage at cranking speed could possibly produce enough force to get through another cycle and actually start. Mechanical energy is proportional to the square of...

The magnetron has to be grounded to work at all, otherwise there's no path for current to flow. The kill wire grounds it from a different internal point of the coil. With the kill wire disconnected, its contact on the magnetron will still show continuity with ground (while the magnetron is...

Berts you are just seeing things wrong because you are in the wrong hemisphere where the electromagnetic currents run backwards. In America (TM) they wouldn't sell a meter with three decimals of precision unless it had three decimals of accuracy! 11.234 V means just that, not 11.233 or 11.235...

Not common, but a BASTARD when it happens. Hard to trace at all, and the slightest jiggle or temperature change can make or break the connection. Far more common are intermittent make/break connection problems from loose/dirty connections. Feels solid, looks good... may even look clean on...

Are you sure the smoke is oil, not gas?

Ok, I *think* there should still be some protection while there is voltage on the system. Nothing I found about galvanic protection was entirely clear, but it seems what inhibits corrosion is the local electrical field - i.e., the density of electric charge. This would depend on voltage and...

Why wouldn't it work on motor vehicles?

Thank you, and Holy Crap! I thought positive ground systems were a pre-WWII thing.

Why's that? I suppose the magnet might produce a little eddy current in the block, but the coil isn't grounded when running.

Could a slipping blade on a pusher damage the flywheel key? I parked a 3.5 (959J02) that was running fine. Later, it was really hard to start, ran rough, and knocked. Sure enough the flywheel key is bent. Also, the blade slips enough to rotate it on the crank by hand pretty easily. I've...

Was there enough rat nest on the cooling fins to cause an overheat?