My Lawn Mower Repair Thread (56k warning)

[Dangeroustoys56]

Hanyoukimura: "The only cure is more lawn mowers!"

So i should be set with my 27 lawntractors then? Actually id like more just for spare parts, but the wife put her foot down on that subject....

 

[hanyoukimura]

Well in some cases its chronic. :tongue:

 

[hanyoukimura]

They're reproducing!

This little guy showed up when I got home a couple days ago. 3

It's a MTD 11A-0210352. Not sure if it runs yet, need a recoil cord.

 

[Two-Stroke]

This is my latest acquisition -- a 1979 Lawn-Boy model R7268.

 

[hanyoukimura]

Cooler than mine.

 

[hanyoukimura]

So despite the fact that we have a winter weather advisory and its snowing out I worked on lawn mowers today.

I've decided to take the Quantum off of that Murray and put it on the Yard Man with the useless OHV engine on it. Carburetor actually wasn't too dirty, mostly a clogged main jet, but it was missing the bowl gasket, something I discovered when I first tipped the Murray on its side and it began pissing fuel out of the bowl.

The recoil had a broken spring so I replaced that, reassembled the carburetor, got a new gasket that sits between the air filter housing and the carb, replaced the muffler with one in better shape, put in a new spark plug and put it on the Yard Man. Started right up and seems to run well.

So what I need now is install t air filter, change the oil, swap blade mounts and mount the correct blade, sharpen it, find an engine cover, preferably a Yard Man cover, and find a shoot to fir it. Good progress overall though.

The Murray will get the Briggs Classic from that duct tape deck.

 

[jamesslcx]

Hanyoukimura, sounds like a great way to spend the day! Stress relief or "Therapy" is what I call working on my mowers now.

 

[hanyoukimura]

Today was actually a pretty nice day with highs around 50 and most of the 2 feet of snow melted, so in addition to giving my car a well deserved bath I got the Poulan Pro push mower running (and well) and finished what I can of the Yard man. It needs an engine cover, ideally a Yard Man on, and the mulch plug assembly. I may have to break down and buy a new one, since its different from the other MTDs I have, being a 20007 I guess its a newer design. Still it runs well now and I took a couple mock-up photos borrowing the engine cover from my uncle's mower.

Not bad.

Tomorrow I will wash the Poulan and the Simplicity off, then put the SP Poulan, the Brute, and the Simplicity in the warm basement for the winter. I'll also strip down the duck tape Murray and put its engine on the other deck and get it running.

Wish I had some snowblowers to work on for winter, but I can at least get these mowers ready to go for Spring

 

[jamesslcx]

Hanyoukimura, nice mower sound like you made the best of the day!

 

[hanyoukimura]

Had the last couple days off, and with gorgeous weather in the mid 60's I figured I would ticker with some of the mowers and do some much need leaf removal.

I cleaned off the Murray deck and put the end from the duct tape special on it. Engine actually ran, albeit not very well and only for a minute or so. Disassembly revealed that someone had made a piss poor attempt at servicing the carburetor before, as the carburetor itself was missing 2 screws and the diaphragm spring, and had the wrong type of bolt holding the tank on, and its missing the governor spring. So the necessary parts on on order.

So that was yesterday.

Today in addition to washing my car I washed off the dirty mowers.

I then set to work on the yard, which had tons of leaves in it. My Brute is already in storage and I don't want to subject it to that sort of work anyway, so I figured I'd use t the Craftsman bagger. Sure it leaks gas slowly (still) but it'll do the job...or so I thought. I ran fine at first then started chugging and kept dying and would only start up for a few seconds then die again. That engine is really grinding my nerves.

So I switched to the Poulan Pro push mower, and wouldn't you know the Craftsman bag fits right on it. Gotta say that thing is an absolute beast. Never bogged down for a second and ran wonderfully. I'll have to clean it again but it did an excellent job at bagging up the leaves. Even though its a heavy deck, those big ball bearing wheels made it really easy to mush and maneuver, I just need to fix fix the front wheels so they aren't loose.