Recent content by seattlepioneer

https://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/grd/d/bothell-vintage-lawn-boy-2-stroke-mower/7168047221.html 19"! No wonder they were so light!

Does the governor appear to move freely and vary the speed widely when you move it by hand?

Yep, everyone has their own methods for storing fuel. And they all work, until they don't....

If all it took was a lot of frustration, I would have more success with repairs.... You didn't mention the often key role of bad language. Perhaps you should be put up for sainthood as well.

You are obviously a hero and should be awarded a medal for soldiering your way through this kind of issue! Especially if you wind up solving the problem. But Custer and Davie Crocket were heroes even though they both got massacred....

Sounds like someone needs to make a You Tube video of this procedure.... This is a lot more than I can imagine, and as a DIYer, I don't have that equipment anyway. How did you soldier your way through to solving this problem, which was apparently complicated and unintuitive? Strategies for...

I notice that many bicycling forums place a good deal of emphasis on buying bicycles, parts and repairs from local bicycle repair shops rather than mass market retailers. Should forums like this place similar emphasis on purchasing mowers, parts and repair services from local mower repair...

I thought that might be the case. Thank you for the correction. If he wasn't able to find the needed part number, would your local mower repair shop be able to measure it, identify it and get the correct replacement?

I have an MTD mower dating from 1990 and the model number on the sticker has been obliterated fortunately I have a spare junk mower that still has the model number legible. But that seems to be a weakness of MTD. Just guessing, but if you take the old belt into an auto parts shop, they can...

Does it? Perhaps the voltage goes directly to a bad connection on the wiring harness and stops there. You need to "walk the circuit" with a voltmeter until you identify any weaknesses or defects. Guessing and supposing is no good! Why are you using a 9 volt presumably transistor type...

I seem to find lots of older equipment where the control cables are seized up, which seems to happen especially commonly when they aren't used much. So how should cables be maintained? Is oiling them from time to time worthwhile? Should the inner cable be pulled out, greased and replaced...

<<The engine seems to run great, just won't start without spraying into the carb. >> I'm not an Xpert, so I'm proposing a guess to see if my guess is supported by those who are Xperts. Isn't that kind of telling us that your have a fuel system or carburetor problem? Do you habitually use...

I remember learning to interpolate tables of mathematical functions using a slide rule to do the calculations. That was circa 1965 or so. In 1990 I went back to learn the math I'd never learned very well, and completed two quarters of regular college calculus before bailing out of the third...

<< After HS spent 3 years gathering intelligence for the NSA on on East Germans and Soviets in Berlin while I was a teenager >> I had a friend who had immigrated from Germany as a youth and was a native German speaker. He was drafted into the army in the early 1960s and was trained in Chinese...

So---- You've worked in a number of different repair specialties. How much do you find being a repairman involves skills that readily translate to different specialties, and how much do you find that each specialty involves distinctly different skills? A good comparison might be contrasting...

Howcum you aircraft mechanics are working on lawnmowers these days?

<<Should of gave him an hour minimum charge and seen how his temper stayed..? >> You didn't change the spark plugs? That's why my preference is to pick up old mowers people are discarding because they are frustrated with equipment that isn't working. Often I can get them to work for a few...

George Friedman is promoting the idea that the age of "the expert" has gone aground on the kind of abuse described by bertsmobile1. Donald Trump is the political expression of the reaction to the rule of those kinds of abusive "experts," and no doubt some actual experts get ground up...

That seems like a good plan for reliable operation! Presumably the second spark plug is for redundancy should one plug fail. Then have regular maintenance scheduled with each plug being tested to catch any that might have failed, and test new plugs to be sure they are good. How often did you...

How often did a new plug fail testing?

So you regard that as verifying that the high voltage spark is likely functioning, not that the spark plug is OK? Presumably an in line spark tester produces similar results? But neither method reliably tests the spark plug. That appears to be consistent with B&S specifications that commonly...

<< All the inline spark testers will show false positives in some cases. >> Heh, heh! Of course I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago.... But if they show a plug is no good, that test would be reliable?

Thanks for the additional comments. My experience as a furnace repairman was that a part was MOST LIKELY to be bad when it was new, right out of the box. Have you found new spark plugs that were no good, or does the manufacturer's inspection/quality control eliminate that?

Thanks for the benefit of your experience and that of others posting. You guys have convinced me! Of course for me I haven't had an inventory of spark plugs conveniently available. But I'm now supposing I should buy a couple of new plugs for each piece of equipment I have, plus another to...

Thanks for your comments. I have an old mower that has probably never had this kind of service done: 99062966/12F8022021E1. It works fine. I have never had occasion to open up the head on an engine, and I'm imagining this would be an opportunity to learn those skills and see the condition of...

I appreciate the explanations. The consensus is that using an ohmmeter to test spark plugs is a waste of time. Replacing the spark plug as a matter of routine is the preferred option for dealing with the spark plug issue. This is supported by the common B&S specification to replace the spark...

12f8022021e1 I notice that the Briggs operating manual specifies that the "combustion chamber" m should be cleaned every 100-300 hours of operation. I'm supposing that would involve opening the head and inspecting and cleaning the head of the piston and valves as needed ---or something else...

Congratulations! Apparently just replacing the spark plug as a matter of routine would have solved the issue right off the bat. Unless you replaced the old spark plug with a new one of the same model! Do our pro repairmen either reliably know the correct spark plug model to install or look...

What was the reason for doing an elaborate test rather than simply replacing the plugs with new ones? Under what circumstances would plugs be subjected to this kind of test -----as a matter of routine or when diagnosing a problem? Were new plugs tested in this way? I'm reminded of the ETOPS...

Simply replacing the spark plug isn't going to tell you whether it was the problem. That would be especially true for intermittent problems, which as a furnace repairman I often found the hardest to diagnose. Especially with intermittent problems that I couldn't diagnose definitively, I...

Ummm. So your method is guessing and supposing what the problem might be, preferring that to testing your theory and knowing for sure? -Could be a bad spark plug --- replace it. -Could be a dirty carb ----replace it. - Could be a bad coil ----replace it. And so on. In the furnace...

Here's a You Tube video showing methods for testing spark plugs with an ohmmeter. Comments are invited.

So--- Pros: What are the common mistakes made by amateur repair people?

Now it's perfectly clear!!

The manual on the mower is at: https://www.lt2000manual.com/ Have you replaced the fuel filter? Page 28 lists reasons why the mower may not start. I'd start checking all of those.

I presume you took care to set the clearance to the coil carefully. Unfortunately, I can't think of much else there is to this simple electrical system. You've disconnected the grounding wires, replaced the coil and spark plug and the symptoms haven't changed. The only other thing is the...

I went through all these exertions with a Briggs Quantum engine. It too would start if fuel was squirted in the carburetor and quit after that was consumed. I eventually found that the plastic fuel manifold was cracked, which prevented the fuel/air mixture from being sucked in from the...

Also, I'd consider the possibility that something else entirely is the problem. Have you checked that the engine is getting fuel by adding some directly into the fuel manifold, checked for good engine compression and checked for good air supply to the carburetor and such?

How did you test for spark? Have you tried replacing the spark plugs?

Why guess? Measure the voltage on both sides of the switch and find out for sure! Then you can jumper out the switch and see if it starts normally. If it does, I'd say you have confirmed the problem, at least as far as I can imagine.

Just guessing, but you could pull out all or several flywheels that are possible candidates and compare them for differences. If you put each in it's own similar category, that might make it simpler to compare your old flywheel with a replacement that is the same.

Hmmmm! As I continue to think about this, I'm guessing that you could simply remove the spark plug and see if that caused the engine to crank normally. If it does, it would lend support to the suggestion that you have an engine problem. If the engine continues to labor with the spark plug...

Well. I would consider it a big job and requiring possessing or developing significant skills. I have viewed some of those videos of doing this kind of thing, and regard them as a cautionary tale I would prefer to avoid, myself. If I decided to do it, I might find an old mower to take apart...

How 'bout checking the voltage at the starter motor and observe what happens when it cranks? If it drops way down, you might have a poor electrical connection, bad solenoid or other issue.

Oil tends to drain down and plug up the air filter and the engine wont run until the mess is cleaned up. I learned this the hard way once.

No. This part was the intake manifold that conducted fuel/air mixture from the carburetor to the engine valve. Because it was broken/cracked, the vacuum developed by the piston sucked in air from the crack rather than atomized fuel/air mixture from the exit of the carburetor. So---- no leak...

I once did a furnace repair for a customer whose power had been off for a week. As I walked up to the house, I could hear the Generator making generator noises. Before I left I asked the guy if the neighbor had complained about the noise 24/7. He said..... "No. I told my neighbor that if...

Watch this video for additional ideas on things to check and methods of checking.

Here is a good You Tube video on diagnosing engine surging problems.

I just broke off one of three mounting bolts on a mower I was removing the engine. The other mower had all three bolts come off without breaking the bolts. I guess brute force is not to be recommended.

<< Was your plastic part cracked? Was it simply blocking the mixture flow or redirecting it somewhere? I am assuming you replaced the part? Do you happen to have a URL for a replacement? Or just the name? Thx >> This plastic part, which the rubber o ring fits over, was cracked/broken all the...

<< The mower is fine when cold but once it gets up to temp especially lately as the weather is warmer, as soon as you release the clutch and load is put on the engine it cuts out. >> Has anyone tried connecting up a problem engine like the to an oscilloscope? An osciloscope makes a graph of...

Removing the blade adapter is likely to be difficult and require a two jaw puller to get it off. If you search You Tube for "removing blade adapter" there are numerous videos on how to perform this trick.

I recently had the same engine that wouldn't start. Very likely the problem was that the engine wasn't getting fuel. So I tried cleaning the carb ---several times, then replacing the carb. Replacing the rubber fuel line ---washing out the fuel tank with gasoline to be sure there was no...

<<Scrub it down with the ex-wife's tooth brush. >> Best reason I've heard yet for getting married.