Search results

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?

Yeah, there's a general presumption here that everyone is a wrench of some kind, because that's who asks questions. No one has the guts to start from the bare basics anymore. It's a long, painful road to endless disappointment... but you do what have to do. Like mowing two acres with a...

Debris in oil or lack of oil. The damage on that cam lobe has probably transferred to the valve/pushrod/lifter (I know nothing about this particular engine or its valve train).

Would diesel work?

On cars I spread motor oil over the manifold/head join to see if it brings the vacuum up. I've never seen a mower that had any place to attach a vacuum gauge, but I bet you could hear the running difference if there's a leak.

What about smoking? Obesity? Alcohol? Type II Diabetes? Motorcycles? Skateboards? Soda pop? Roundup? Carpet cleaner? I can sympathize, but if you make society collectively responsible for health, you have to accept that some people are going to do stupid things that might cost you...

Gauge pressure for isothermal compression should be about 14.7 * (compression ratio - 1). Minus whatever is lost from valves and rings. At cranking speeds, a compression gauge will read close to isothermal compression. 150 psi would indicate >11:1 compression ratio. Which is a damn lot for a...

I know all too well, I've worked for government 15 years. But there's no denying things are a lot damn cleaner than they were sixty years ago. Even though they still let ships burn bunker oil. Congress don't know numbers from a hole in their *ss unless those are written on a check.

Have a beer or few. Calculating is fun! So is dynamite.

Once upon a time there was a need for the EPA. Garbage, raw sewage, and all sorts of industrial waste were dumped into rivers. Coal power plants spewed millions of tons of fly ash and sulfuric acid. Cars added huge amounts of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, and hydrocarbons. Now that things...

I bet if you hit the crank directly you'd have problems. Or if the crank was bent really bad and required repeated pounding. I've got one that leaks a bit at the bottom seal; pretty sure the crank has been straightened because when I got it the blade was broken. Not just bent, had a chunk bit...

Like those stupid gas can spouts that make it difficult or impossible to refuel. Sooner or later they cause a massive fuel spill, but we're spared the tiny amount of vapor that would have escaped from normal spouts!

150 psi??? I've had cars that blew 120 or less and ran fine, minus a little oil. I had a Briggs 3.5 that was blowing 35 psi when I retired it because the deck was rusted out.

Probably something got jammed or disconnected when the air filter blew off. Which I've never heard of.

Check for bent crankshaft.

If the amp gauge was fried, it might read current where there is none but it wouldn't be able to detect being hooked up backward (pegs the other way) unless there was something to detect. Diode is most certainly toast. Might be other problems too.

People used lawn mowers for generations without governors at all. You can still get a choke cable for like ten bucks to push the throttle; it might also serve as an ignition cutoff.

A used mower has a used starter. How long before it fails?

A loan without collateral is a gift.

The diesel, m'lord, would be ignited by the gasoline. How this could contribute to blowing a head gasket, I dunno.

Yeah, like my diesel in a denatured alcohol can marked "DIESEL" in Sharpie. The two-stroke gas is in a completely unmarked red can...

Mine was easier than that; all I had to do was pull the flywheel, saw the mandrel off, and put the other parts on. It spins the motor and rewinds.

Man that cylinder is uglier than my first wife.

I had the exact same thing happen not long ago. Took me forever to figure out. Finally got it running and it threw a rod.

I have an old Murray push with a Briggs 95902, 1992 vintage. The starter pulley wore out where the recoil spring goes in, causing the spring to come loose and get scrambled up in its housing. I found a new spring and pulley, but can't get the spring to stay seated in the shroud. I can't find...

Ruh Roh. I am planning to do that on a trailer brake controller powered by the brake light circuit. I realized I needed a bypass (don't want to lose the brakes if the brakelight switch fails) and that if the brake lights had a short it would just blow the fuse on the bypass and... oops. I...

Unless it's one of those brands intended to last only six months until they change their name from Hung Kung Fui to Chi Chan Chong.

Unless this is a $100 part (and maybe even if it is), Bertsmobile is right. You don't know what the specs on the diode are supposed to be. I think there is probably supposed to be something moderating that voltage, and it's quite likely in the diode. Or could there be some other component...

I haven't, but what do you consider a good rating on Amazon? All that Chinese garbage usually has vast amounts of phony five star ratings. I look for the distribution of one to four star ratings and read the one stars to see if they reflect a consistent and real problem. Sometimes a lot of the...

I'm no electrical engineer but I'm guessing at least one diode is fried like an egg. Keep in mind you can test them for resistance at 9V or whatever your tester supplies but the response may be non-linear. I.e., it looks fine on the tester but the 40V peak from the stator might blow right...

I thought those worked by suction from the intake.

I dunno how you foo's tell what's burning by color. I only see "gray", unless it's moisture (white).

The battery might still be good. I'm more interested in figuring out what the multimeter is actually measuring, honestly. If the open-circuit stator is pumping 28V sinusoidal AC and the battery is fully charged, diode functional, the RMS voltage at the battery should be about 22V (assuming...

I'm curious under what conditions the 28 and 14V were measured - with or without any load connected? Did you try taking an AC reading downstream from the diode?

If your tester is reading 28V AC off the stator, your peak voltage is 40V each direction. The diode will have to take that voltage, and whatever peak current the stator can push into the battery - could be pretty large.

I don't know about this particular system but typically a rectifier includes capacitance to help level the voltage.