What's missing in this picture?

[Hammermechanicman]

Back in about 1969 we had one of the first sears Eager 1 mowers. No deadman on the handle. The only control was a toggle switch on top of the engine shroud to kill the ignition. Push the primer and pull the rope and it ran at full speed till you flipped the switch. No idle circuit in carb so that is not a new idea. I have had people want me to "fix up" a throttle control on those fixed speed trashcumseh mowers. Sorry.

 

[ILENGINE]

Back in about 1969 we had one of the first sears Eager 1 mowers. No deadman on the handle. The only control was a toggle switch on top of the engine shroud to kill the ignition. Push the primer and pull the rope and it ran at full speed till you flipped the switch. No idle circuit in carb so that is not a new idea. I have had people want me to "fix up" a throttle control on those fixed speed trashcumseh mowers. Sorry.

A lot of people complained about the Tecumseh engines being junk. Back when Tecumseh was still in business early 2000, Briggs had like 66% of the market, and Tecumseh had like 13%, and my Briggs to Tecumseh failure rate was 15:1 So they were not that bad of an engine from my own experience.

 

[Blaine B.]

Does anyone ever run their mower on anything but full throttle?

 

[Hammermechanicman]

A lot of people complained about the Tecumseh engines being junk. Back when Tecumseh was still in business early 2000, Briggs had like 66% of the market, and Tecumseh had like 13%, and my Briggs to Tecumseh failure rate was 15:1 So they were not that bad of an engine from my own experience.

I am a fan of the old cast iron tecumseh engines. I still have and use a HH120 and a VH100. Got a few others laying around. Just not a fan of the newer push mower engines. Lots of broken con rods on the MH engines too.

 

[ILENGINE]

I am a fan of the old cast iron tecumseh engines. I still have and use a HH120 and a VH100. Got a few others laying around. Just not a fan of the newer push mower engines. Lots of broken con rods on the MH engines too.

And after that series with the connecting rod issues, Tecumseh beefed up their connecting rods, and very seldom did one break after that unless ran without oil. The internal components on their V twins were overbuilt and had massive connecting rods and bearing surfaces.

 

[Rivets]

Ditto IL on Tecumseh engines. I would take almost everyone of their models today, if they were available over 90% of the others on the market today.

 

[VegetiveSteam]

Does anyone ever run their mower on anything but full throttle?

For some dumb reason they do. Some think the engine is too loud so they run it about about half throttle. I remind them that they are dealing with an "Air Cooled Engine" and when they run the engine slower they are also slowing down their cooling fan. I ask them if they would run their car's radiator half full?

 

[VegetiveSteam]

you idle them down when moving stuff from the lawn , which of course you should have done before you started, moving garden furnature so you can mow underneath them or emptying the catcher
All good reasons to idle down an engine that does not have an "I AM THE STUPIDIST MORON ON THE PLANET" dead mans ignition that 99.9999% of the people tape to the bras in any case because it strains their fingers or gives them blisters.

It was somewhat of a rhetorical question and I know people do idle them down for the reasons you mentioned but is it really necessary? It's all personal preference of course but if I'm only taking 10 or 20 seconds to move something I just let it run full and keep as much cooling air flowing over that engine as possible.

When I bag I use a Snapper and I will either leave it a full throttle or shut it off. That set up on the mower is such that if you let the bag get a bit too full and idle the engine down to take the bag off, clippings want to fall into the discharge chute and at idle not all gets blown out. At full throttle it just blows it out. If I let the bag get way too full then I shut it off because I know I'm going to be having to pull some grass out of the chute and I don't want to be the cause of any more safety labels needing added to equipment.

I don't believe there is a wrong way. It's preference and what you've gotten used to doing. The only thing I believe is wrong is when people are mowing at less that full throttle.

 

[VegetiveSteam]

Back in about 1969 we had one of the first sears Eager 1 mowers. No deadman on the handle. The only control was a toggle switch on top of the engine shroud to kill the ignition. Push the primer and pull the rope and it ran at full speed till you flipped the switch. No idle circuit in carb so that is not a new idea. I have had people want me to "fix up" a throttle control on those fixed speed trashcumseh mowers. Sorry.

Was the mower deck orange and the engine gray? We had one when I was a kid. It worked fine but was hard to restart hot.

 

[VegetiveSteam]

And after that series with the connecting rod issues, Tecumseh beefed up their connecting rods, and very seldom did one break after that unless ran without oil. The internal components on their V twins were overbuilt and had massive connecting rods and bearing surfaces.

The bad thing about Tecumseh engines was what I heard my former boss and mentor say many times. "You have to be a mechanic to work on a Tecumseh not just a parts changer."

If you knew how to work on a float style carb and new how to set the point gap with a dial indicator you would end up with an engine that was pretty hard to beat. The sadness is that when Tecumseh went out of business in 2007 there were building a really good engine. Greed and bad management killed Tecumseh.