My mower repair thread

[Lawnboy18]

Nice job on the mower! it didn't look good at all when you first got it.

 

[Vervepipes]

It sure didn't look great. Tomorrow after work I'm going to try to break down a half dozen basket cases and get one or two more ready for sale. Ambitious but it was a late start to the season. My wife is feeling well enough after an eye surgery to watch the kids for a few hours so I'll take full advantage of that, there's some lost income of hers to make up for at this point. I also have a line on a freebie from my classified add that if still available I'll go get, didn't look much at my emails today being mother's day so hopefully it didn't already get given away. I also picked up two a basket case and a mower with potential from a neighbor, the one with potential has a honda clone that seems to be missing the parts that are good on the shelved clone I already have. It may be a runner with minimum effort. The basket case may be good enough parts wise to finally get that K-Grow or whatever it was out the door. Tomorrow should be a fruitful day.

 

[hanyoukimura]

You're lucky, at least you've got a bunch of mowers to work with. I have yet to acquire a new one this year. In years past there was a guy an hour away who collected them to resell for dirt cheap, but he hasn't posted anything on Craigslist this year, and I've yet to find any going for cheap close by. I have two completed leftovers from last year for sale, so there's that. However, its gotten to the point where the I'm actually digging into old inventory to make something. Guys its just as well, the one I've started work on has been in the back of my garage for 3 years!

Great job on the mower, looks legit. I try hard to make mowers not look like cob jobs as well.

 

[Vervepipes]

I'm going to try a bit more aggressively to get stuff to work on this year so I'll have mowers to work on in the fall and winter. I plan to corner a few scrap metal collectors who tour around the city on garbage day and offer a bounty on mowers. Most of them take them straight to the recycling depot ond probably only get a dollar or two in scrap value, I think if I offer $5 per mower it would be worth their while to stop by my place once per week for a deposit. I didn't have any luck with that route last year though, I tried with two guys, one would not part with his "junk", as he said "it's all just junk to me". The other already had a guy he was selling his mowers to. My biggest problem is getting decks that are not rotten. I've been thinking about buying decks from Alibaba and building mowers from the parts I have, but the minimum order is 100, and storage for that many decks would be difficult.

Total count for new mowers yesterday was 4. 2 from a neighbor, 2 from the side of the road. One more I'm picking up after work from a reply to my add. Looks like it's going to be a good year, but the start of the year was great last year too, thats when everybody buys brand new mowers and discard the old ones. By the way, a Yaris sedan fits a mower perfectly in the back with the handle removed, no Tetris moves or awkward angles, trunk opens up large, and gets 40MPG while picking up/delivering. Much better than the big blue pig Grand Caravan I was using last year, that's been relegated as the grocery getter now and is parked 5 days per week.

 

[Vervepipes]

Mixed results today. An electric mower I had picked up works just fine, just needs the blade sharpened, that will be easy to flip to buy some needed ebay parts. The K-Grow is getting to be a thorn in my side. The cable worked fine on a Tecumseh but binds when on a Briggs. I had broken down a running but rotten mower for this attempt, but the cable that came with it was too short for the large K-Grow. I'll have to build a running Tecumseh, until then it's shoved into the corner of a shed. A half decent deck with a no name Chinese Honda clone was next. It was missing some parts, some parts were cobbled together. I used a genuine Honda recoil and governor spring, it runs when pulled but starves quickly. I took the carb apart and it looks flawless, carb cleaner flows through all the holes. Junk copycat parts. I got a carb from a Honda Harmony on and realized after the fuel line was the only thing left to connect that the fuel hose sizes were not the same. Nuts. I'll take a better look at the carb later. Shoved in the corner.

I got a hit on my add, picked up a very old Tecumseh Craftsman with the throttle control right on the carb. Very rough but maybe I can use something on it. On the way home I saw a newish looking mower on the curb, so I hurried home, unloaded the whale of a Craftsman, jetted back to said curb and picked up a 2010 Yard Pro self propelled rear bagger, minus the bag. It looks like a Husqvarna, so I'm sure I happen to have a bag for that. Kohler motor, those can be hit and miss, but this one started right up. The self propel doesn't work, probably the belt because the cable has tension on it. Deck looks near flawless, I can't imagine why anybody would throw this out... Looks like this was an expensive mower when it was new. Debating on selling it right away or using it until I can repair my Honda. I can't keep them all...

 

[Vervepipes]

First mower sale of the year, and it hadn't even been listed yet. Somebody responded to my add and brought me a self propelled Craftsman in rough shape and asked if I had anything for sale, especially an electric mower, so I showed him this one. All this one needed was a cleaning and blade sharpening and it was good to go.


This 6HP Craftsman is rusty but has no holes or cracks. I cleaned it up as best as I could, found a bag to fit, changed the oil, sharpened the blade and did a test mow. Works great but ugly, so it'll be sold cheap, probably near fifty bucks.



The other Craftsman, the basket case that was cleaned up from prior is ready to go too, so I have two listed for sale, and may have another one or two by the weekend.

 

[SeniorCitizen]

One of my 1940's Craftsman table saws is powered by an electric mower rocker switch from 1973. Never throw a good heavy switch away, sell it.

 

[Vervepipes]

I wish to pour some fuel on the cheap China "powermore" mower, place the full jerry can on top of it, throw a match at it and then pee on it to extinguish it. I got creative and filled the fuel line with carb cleaner prior to filling the gas tank and it seems to have cleaned out the carb enough for it to run, then I saw the governor linkage was bent, so I adjusted it and it ran better, but surging. The issue seems to now be with the spring that follows the governor rod. With the spring completely off, it doesn't run, with it on it surges, if I hold a bit of tension the surging goes away. The spring is one that I took from a wrecked Honda. I'll see now if my other Chonda on the shelf has the same spring, maybe it will be a better fit. I'm so close but so far away because after all I did, I finally could not restart it at the last light of day. I think I'll have to bring all the adjustments back to zero and start again with the spare (if I have one) spring.

 

[hanyoukimura]

Some mowers are a real headache. I've had a couple troublemakers. One was a HRM215 that I fixed twice, ran great, only to stop running after a while. Turned out that debris was caught in the tank screen that I couldn't see. The other was an older Craftsman with a Tecumseh that kept flooding gas out of the bowl. Finally learned that the floats on those carburetors are adjustable!

I have only acquired one Chinese Honda clone. It had blown the spark plug out and ripped the coil off with it, sheering the coil hold down bolts in the process. Think its still sitting on a shelf somewhere.

 

[Vervepipes]

Emails and texts, looks like both mowers I have left will be sold tomorrow. Now to get to work on a few self propelled mowers I've been saving since last year.