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I cut a piece of quarter inch plywood to size and use it as a ramp to let me load my mower in my Chevy Astro van. That works quite well. I also drilled a hole in the van and bolted a short chain to the hole. The chain has a hook on the end of it which fits into a hole drilled in the mower...

I just bought a scythe from a neighbor. I thought I could sharpen it fine with a file, but that doesn't seem to be doing the job. So I have a peening jig on order. Any scythe users on this forum? I'd be glad for any tips. I'm figuring on using it much like a string trimmer.

I always thought that Snapper mower got CHEATED at the academy awards when it didn't even get a "Best Supporting Actor" NOMINATION from the Forrest Gump movie. How long will it be before another mower gets such a featured Hollywood movie role? I suppose I should write a screen play. Anyone...

WHERE is that global warming they've been promising us for YEARS! I've seen nothing but cool weather, rain and more cool weather. It's the Seattle weather I remember from my youth. Summer ----the last week of July and the first week of August.

I used to enjoy reading this forum a few years ago, but just signing in I can see the site is now inundated with annoying advertizing. Is there a trick to avoiding this, or are users just stuck with it?

No surprise really. The government got into the business of controlling products to prevent them from being "adulterated." These days government power is used to REQUIRE that products be adulterated.

What causes the inside of a tank to rust out? I'd presume that would require long term exposure to water. Would that be caused by long time condensation in the tank or what?

I wonder if two or three coats of spray primer would work to seal the metal? I'm imagining that would get into the various nooks and crannies of the tank.

Normally I'd expect to remove any existing finish and sand before refinishing a rusty piece of metal. Obviously that's not practical with a fuel tank ---but what kind of prep work can you do before refinishing?

So what island are you on and what are you using your equipment for? When I'm dreaming of being on a tiny south Pacific Island I don'r envision myself being behind a lawn mower......

Did you inspect it and find a defect?

<<I had the carb and lines off like 100 times already never had this much trouble with such a simple engine.. unless there is something i am missing inside the carb. Does anyone know a good aftermarket carb that has worked for them? debating on getting a new one but oem is like $120 thats more...

I've never had that accumulate debris, so I don't usually check on it. But it's worth doing. And I'll check and blow out the air filter cartridge if it needs it. Good ideas!

I'm 2/3rds of the way through the mowing season ---well into our seasonal drought which stunts the lawn growth, but not the weed growth. I did a mid season maintenance check this evening. I scraped off the accumulated grass collected under the mower. The oil level was a little low, so I...

<< Replacing carb parts like that builds character. >> Good or bad?

<<It appears I have found the problem. It was not the carb. >> I think there is a tendency to have a theory on a problem, and pursue that repair repeatedly even when it doesn't fix the problem. Part of that is lack of confidence that you have fixed the problem correctly. But you can fix the...

I'm not an Xpert, I'm a Diyer speculating on possible causes for the symptoms you describe. Since you describe the engine as acting as though it's running out of fuel, I'd take that seriously and suppose that it is running out of fuel. So you have a fuel problem and likely a carburetor...

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?