My mower repair thread

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Oh for sure, the briggs is missing parts to it, and I just got the Suzuki running well anyways yesterday. The "new" one will just donate bits and peices of the self propel and anything else I may need to make the Suzuki powered one operational. The second suzuki was robbed to get the good one going though, so it'll get torn down and put into boxes for spare parts.

 

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I went to take a look at the Toro that I picked up this morning on my lunch break for a quick evaluation. It's a model 20214, the traction cable is pooched, the deck is full of holes, front wheels are very beat up, rears are better but I think it uses a different drive mechanism. Basically there is not much on this one that I can use. I can use the front wheels from the Suzuki powered parts mower that I have, and if I can swap over the drive wheel from this Briggs powered one then I'll have a matching set of wheels, since my current ones have grey centres. The white rears on the Briggs mower are pretty bald though, so even that would have to be a temporary fix. So in the end, with the one I picked up today I'm not much further ahead than I was before.

 

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So the drive axle is different after all, I took both self propelled mowers apart and the size of the keyway is much smaller on the older model. I'll have to try to take the entire drive axle assembly from the parts mower to get both wheels to turn. Project for another day. I did however transfer over the bagging chute to replace the borken mulch plate that I had. Next will be the pull cord retainer, slowly it will come together, one good Suzuki Toro out of three bad ones.

 

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I picked up this guy on trade from a co-worker for a self propel wheel, it had the wrong style carb on it with an intake for PCV, where the crankcase breather on the engine was the thin plastic tube style that points straight down. I put the proper carb on and had to use a bit of gasket maker to have the intake manifold seal perfectly. It's rusty so it'll be a beater mower.



This one I just got tonight. It is from 2011 and had a broken intake manifold, I bought it for $40. I searched through my parts engines for a while looking for one to match, but none were the same as the manifold that came off it. The intake port was round on the end and square on the other. If I would have only looked at the actual engine's intake port I would have seen that a circular port intake manifold would work. Lesson learned, and about a dozen parts engines now partially broken down for boxing. After getting it all back together (I had to rob a few screws that were missing), it wouldn't start. I swapped in a good spark plug and it started no problem. This one will be an easy flip once I get it cleaned up as it barely has any rust.


Tomorrow I'm picking up a rear wheel drive Craftsman (Husqvarna really)for $30. The photo in the add shows that the wire lead from the engine brake is disconnected, but not broken. In the add it says "maybe this is why it isn't running, but I have no idea". In any case, if it needs more than that I have a few parts Quantums laying around to fix it up.

 

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The 5.5HP Craftsman is going to a co-worker for cheap, I don't try to make much profit from friends and family. The rear wheel drive Craftsman that I was going to buy for $30 had a cracked deck that the seller didn't see, so I walked away from it, as I was leaving he offered it for free, so I took it. It has electric start, but is missing a few components of it, namely the battery, battery tray and key/ignition. The engine is a 6.5HP Quantum and the wire that was shown to be maybe broken is in fact broken, but I have spares. I'm wondering how universal rear drive axles are, as in if there are only a few manufacturers of them. I'll take a good look and maybe the rear axle can be swapped over to my John Deere (Snapper).

 

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I just looked at a parts diagram and the transaxles look nothing alike. So much for that idea, I was hoping to keep the Deere alive somehow. I'm sure I can part out the Craftsman though, looks like the electric starter could get me a few bucks on Ebay.

 

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I picked up a pair of mowers for free today from a classified add. One is just a basic old Canadian Tire branded MTD with a broken handle but nice deck given it's age, the second is much more interesting. This beast is a Husqvarna H51MDC, which I can't find any pictures of online so here's a picture from the add and one of the data plate that I took.



It's neat factor is high, I think I'll keep it. And surprise, aluminum deck, just like every other keeper of mine. It has a very bad spray bomb paint job, so I'll have to find a close match to the original paint when it's this one's turn to get repainted.

 

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I looked at the Husqvarna tonight, the deck is missing a large section of deck under the discharge cover. It'll live on through other mowers. The handle is the same shape as Husqvarna based Craftsman mowers, but has a curved top like higher end mowers, so I'll find a nice Craftsman to put that on. I'm pretty sure all the Quantum needs to work is an engine brake cable. The ball bearing wheels may end up on my Homelite, and the adjusters are nice so I'll see if they can be swapped over to a basic non adjustable deck without much trouble. Too bad though, it is a very light weight mower, and with a Quantum it would have been a very nice machine.

I'm having the same problem now as last year, everybody who needed a mower at the start of the season now has one, and I'm left with three mowers for sale, and one soon to be ready with no replies at all. I think I'll wind down the season's work and stop actively looking for more to fix, and break down everything I have left for spares. That way, I can focus on repainting and repairing all of my keepers, and work on the damaged deck on the house that I haven't touched yet.

 

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The red Yard Machines sold for a bit less than I wanted for it, but I didn't want it just sitting around either. $80 is still a good profit for something that only needed the oil drained.

 

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Well, today one of my "competitors" came by my place with a shopping list of parts he needed. When I was in need to get rid of a lot of parts in a hurry last year he bought about 6 parts mowers from me. He brought up that a friend of his that is in his 80's is getting out of the mower business and has a huge inventory, and that we should head down to his place and try to buy what we can between the two of us. That sounds like a good deal to me, I'm not too interested in a lot of things but if there are Toros, LawnBoys or oddball mowers I'd be all over it. I think I may take the guy up on the offer, we each have a minivan and can fit a lot of stuff with the seats taken out. I just need to work hard to box all of my parts before that happens though. I've torn apart and boxed about 6 engines this week so I'm on track to have all of my parts taken care of in a week or so. I was planning on that to be the end of the season for me, but I'll see what I can get from the guy to have ready for May 2016.