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  1. Smithsonite

    Truck Owners Group Available

    After 14 years running a shop doing small engines and auto repair (mostly automotive towards the end), I quit AND got rid of all my modern junk vehicles. Whelp ... looks like this site doesn't like my pics either. (n) Replaced a '07 Silverado 1500 I bought brand new with a '93 Ram W250 with a...
  2. Smithsonite

    Fuel

    Yep, I've seen that as well. Marketers years back always pushed that stuff as "ethanol resistant fuel line" - stuff was absolute garbage! I ended up doing my own research, and testing as it happened. Found Tygothane / Versilon clear hose in formulation C-210-A to be the best, truly...
  3. Smithsonite

    Fuel

    Do it, or don't do it. Only matters to YOU. The first time you need the equipment and it won't start, and now instead of working on you or the customer's lawn you're tearing into a carburetor and fuel system for a cleaning, THEN you'll want to use E0. :) Another thing I've learned. Heat...
  4. Smithsonite

    Fuel

    I ran a small engine shop for 14 years. 95% of my business was cleaning carburetors gummed up, corroded and / or destroyed from ethanol. My customers would say you're dead wrong with that opinion.
  5. Smithsonite

    Fuel

    If you are near or in a state that sells E0 at the pump, that's the way to go. It's high $4 a gallon around here in NY, NH, VT, and ME.
  6. Smithsonite

    Fuel

    Over 14 years of repairing small engines, I've found you can get away with using pump gas (E10) if you use the equipment often. If it sits for months, that's when problems start. I've also found draining a diaphragm carburetor of fuel ends up causing more issues than it helps. You're actually...
  7. Smithsonite

    BOOM!

    Only time I had ever seen something like this happen was on a Craftsman lawn tractor in the late 80's - it was fairly new at the time, so guessing a '87-'88 model. Think it had a Briggs, but that was 10's of thousands of gallons of beer, whiskey, rum, gin, and who-knows-what-else, ago ... the...
  8. Smithsonite

    Problems with compression test.

    Some machines have a compression release on the intake cam, deactivated once over 300 RPM or so by flyweights.
  9. Smithsonite

    Brand loyalty?

    These days it's a fools game to be brand loyal. Everything has been on a race to the bottom the past 20+ years. You have to take what's good at that moment. I owned an auto repair / small engine repair shop for 14 years. I've come to the conclusion that if you got ANYTHING good today -...
  10. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    Fixed it for ya. ;)
  11. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    Here in MA, nearly every hotel along a major highway is jammed full of illegals. Now, they're stuffing them in Logan Airport. It's absolute INSANITY! What other country does this to itself?? What other country (Besides Canada) allows people who have ZERO desire to assimilate, stream over their...
  12. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    I know - he was so awful - he put Americans back to work, had a roaring economy with cheap fuel. After Covid DECIMATED the economy, he had it back in action in LESS than 1 year. I heated my leaky house for $1,600 when he was in office. Cost me $38 to fill the car, and $65 to fill the truck I...
  13. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    I don't think HE knows, lol. Too much LSD from the sounds of things. 🤣
  14. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    Fox, lol! 🤣 You've gotta be kidding me ... Bert, it's useless conversing with you. You're off the rails.
  15. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    Yeah, Bert - our reality and your news are as far apart as out respective continents are. You're being fed MOUNTAINS of bullshit. Don't feel bad, though - 50% of Americans believe it too, and they see the decline daily, yet refuse to admit it. Our media has run the biggest psych-ops campaign...
  16. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    My ol' man used to hose down our sheds with it. One of the best stains / termite-repellents available. (y)
  17. Smithsonite

    New used Deere l100 lawn tractor

    Well, from experience if you use that Amazon solenoid, you WILL be replacing it every year (IF you're lucky). I gave up many years ago buying ANY electrical devices from Amazon. It's all straight from mainland china with the expected quality control. That said, these days genuine Briggs parts...
  18. Smithsonite

    Used oil

    I built my own waste oil burner, and use it to heat my uninsulated shop. Works great! It's just a drip system, with a gutted Becket burner to supercharge it. https://i.postimg.cc/KzQNX2bK/IMG-0862.jpg
  19. Smithsonite

    Age old question, Winter Storage?

    I hear that, fellas. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. What's worked for years continues to work for me as well.
  20. Smithsonite

    Age old question, Winter Storage?

    I have more, but they won't upload ...
  21. Smithsonite

    Age old question, Winter Storage?

    Yeah, if you use your equipment constantly and it never sits, then E10 is perfectly fine. If they sit, then you deal with this ...
  22. Smithsonite

    Age old question, Winter Storage?

    I was a small engine mechanic for 14 years full time - ran a shop out of my house. In my experience, if it has a diaphragm carburetor, you leave it FULL of gas. The diaphragms ALWAYS fail if left dry any length of time. If it has a float bowl, best course of action is to drain everything dry...
  23. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Government at work!
  24. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    I made a ton of money off it for years. Just recently quit the biz - I was doing everything from weedwhackers to pickup trucks. Automotive crap burned me out quick. But anyway, it's the principle of the government doing this to their own people. Making their lives miserable & costing them...
  25. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Indeed. These are the only pics small enough for upload here. I have many, many more!
  26. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Yeah, I've seen it all from green crap, black crap, jello, and brown molasses-like goo. Used to see the goo more back in the old days. These days it's mostly jello, or green.
  27. Smithsonite

    How many hours do machines really last?

    Back in the day, my dad had an old Roper-built Craftsman Varidrive twin-cylinder garden tractor that ran 600 hours, and was hardly broken in. We sold it to a neighbor, who beat the crap out of it another 5 years, and sold it to someone else. I've worked on a homeowner-quality Husqvarna lawn...
  28. Smithsonite

    Amazon carb for B&S engine, no threads, screw broke! It's a journey!!

    If the bottom of fuel tank is ABOVE the carburetor bowl, then you won't have a fuel pump. If the carb is higher than the tank, you most definitely WILL have a pump. Just follow the feed line from the carb backwards to find it. It won't be far since it needs a crankcase pulse to work. As far as...
  29. Smithsonite

    Toro Zero Turn smoking

    Smoke at startup is a dead ringer for a leaky valve seal. The few drips that get past it burn up after startup, so it'll puff for a second or 2 after starting.
  30. Smithsonite

    New John Deere electric zero turn mower

    Truth right here. The green movement is nothing more than a tool to transform the economy so slowly that nobody will recognize what's happening until it's too late. "Rules for thee, but not for me." These morons have frigged up the economy so badly, there's no way out except for a total...
  31. Smithsonite

    New John Deere electric zero turn mower

    The GMT-400 series trucks are the last, best built, solid trucks GM ever produced. I made the mistake of selling my '94 for a brand new '07 GMT-900 series truck off the lot. Was a mistake that was! Brakes pulsated on the TEST DRIVE - 40 miles on the clock. Door trim fell off the 1st week. I...
  32. Smithsonite

    New John Deere electric zero turn mower

    Geesh ... $6,400 and it looks like a homeowner z-turn sold at Home Depot. NO THANKS!!
  33. Smithsonite

    Mower no start

    If these sit outdoors, you can get a situation where the ground between the starter and the engine becomes poor. Doesn't happen often, but that would explain why it spun on the bench but not bolted to the engine. The brushes can also get oxidized, and the bushings for the armature can dry up...
  34. Smithsonite

    New John Deere electric zero turn mower

    The media has turned their backs on Musk now, because he uttered words that MIGHT sound a little on the Conservative side. And that's the WRONG side for corporate media. The meltdown has been highly entertaining, though. After hearing about what J/D has done to farmers spending a half-million...
  35. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Yeah, I've found gas stations around MA are widely varying in alcohol content. Near or in the cities they're closer to 10%, while the ones around me are 6-7%. Explains the poor mileage whenever I fueled up in the city.
  36. Smithsonite

    Maintenance Tachometer

    I've got the same one Steves has. 12 years, zero issues. I use it mainly on generators, but it comes in handy for lawn equipment if the RPM sounds a bit low. Those I can usually tune by ear.
  37. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Sometimes you get lucky. Depends on how the carb vents some are better (or worse) than others. My brother had a '93 Suzuki DR350 that was converted to a dual sport - if you forgot to turn the petcock off as you were close to the house to run the bowl down, that thing would clog right up in...
  38. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    When cars aren't driven at least weekly, I've seen the exact same issues with them as with OPE. Ethanol separation in the tank, then the return action of the pump mixes it all up and friggs up the injectors. Also just the fuel sitting in the line, rail, and injectors will go bad and screw...
  39. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    I won't even run E10 in my paramotor, and I've got over a 9:1 glide ratio. 😂
  40. Smithsonite

    FX691V oil consumption

    He might live where it's hot, and is just cooking valve seals out of them, possibly ...
  41. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    When I was in eastern OH a few years back, I found 90 octane at a small gas station right near a major highway. I filled up my 2.5 gallon can and brought it home with me. Cheap, too! I'd have bought more, but we had our little Volvo 940 packed to the roof with camping shit, plus stuff we...
  42. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Nowhere can you get it at the pump, except those 2 places. Problem with airports is, #1, the cost - deep-$5/gallon around here, and #2, lead. Lead won't be a problem until you get some hours on the equipment. Then it can foul plugs and help plug exhaust ports, build up on heads, etc.. That's...
  43. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Indeed! I need a time machine. I'd get back there, then smash it.
  44. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    I always thought the main reason for adding ethanol was for emissions. Like I mentioned several posts back, to get my '85 Monte to pass emissions, I'd add 4 bottles of Christy Drygas (isopropyl alcohol) to a half tank of gas, then go out and drive around in 1st gear to get the cat smoking hot...
  45. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Yeah, but they're BUILT for that. Higher compression and tuned to match. My buddy has a 1k HP 2011 Camaro built for E85. The fuel system alone on that cost him $12,000. Has 3 fuel pumps and 1/2" fuel lines - that's what it takes to make power on E85.
  46. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    It clogs injectors just as badly as carburetors. It's just that people tend to use cars and trucks FAR more than OPE. Cars and trucks aren't seasonal, and they're kind of needed in daily life. I bought a '93 Volvo 940 in 2015 that hadn't run in a couple years. The owner at the time tried to put...
  47. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Because when E10 87 sits, it'll end up MUCH lower than 87 in time. I didn't do any testing to prove this - I can just tell by how my equipment runs. My zero turn in my avatar would KNOCK super loudly when first started. That first "pop" was a loud knock on that old fuel. The octane rating had...
  48. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Yep, right on the money. Usually the differences in mileage between E10 gas at different stations is differing alcohol content, I've found. The sticker on the pump says "Up to" 10% ethanol. My local Cumberland Farms I've tested at 7% ethanol. In the city it's always closer to 10%, and your...
  49. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Oh yeah, methanol is a big no no, unless the fuel system is specifically designed for it. BIG damage ...
  50. Smithsonite

    Great ethanol warning

    Fun, fun! I have more, but this site doesn't allow anything more than flip phone pics ...
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