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Boy this irritates me. Local shop has a rookie tech that is just guessing at what is wrong with things and don't even have the proper tools or is too lazy to use them. But what do I expect from a so-called professional shop.

The first I got in from this shop was Hustler with a 35hp Briggs. They told the customer he needed a new $4000 engine. The problem was it was consuming oil like lazy but the mower was able to cut 3+ feet grass like it was a normal lawn. What I found was just a blown head gasket. When the customer went back they said no way that was the problem and yet the customer has been using the mower for now over one month and barely has to add oil. He is a commercial user.

Now Saturday I get in another Briggs 13L engine that had been the same shop three times for carburetor problems. The root cause was trash in the fuel tank. Even after a tank cleaning, three supposedly carburetor cleanings and a 70 micron fuel being added the customer was still having problems. Well I torn the carburetor to find the main jet and the inlet clogged with large pieces of grass. Apparently the fuel line was never cleaned out or the was never fully cleaned. What worst is the tech instead using a 4mm socket to remove the carburetor used a pair vise grips. And then when he tried to remove the main fuel nozzle use a plain common flat tip screwdriver screwing up the nozzle. This part is not replaceable as Briggs does not provide it. Beside the carburetor repair kit cost nearly as much as the carburetor itself so best to just replace it when necessary. Boy Brigs has gotten proud of their carburetor repair kits.

On top that the breather tube was broken and split he just RTV that problem. And he had disconnected the kill switch because of a supposedly fail oil level sensor. I didn't verify the sensor but I did reconnect the kill switch and properly bypass the oil sensor system. The customer was much happier with the engine shutdown having to wait the carburetor to run out of fuel.

Now I am having to wait for a new breather tube as it is the first I seen this particular so I had none in stock and Briggs Power Distributor is out of them (B/O). I found one on the West coast so it take a week to get here. Meanwhile I adding a couple to my stock order and order once Briggs gets them in.

Sorry just had to vent a little.

Hey man, it's just a lawn mower. Anybody can fix it. No real skillset required. LOL

The shop is closed now but there used to be a shop called Tom's Outdoor Power and was a Toro dealer. Tom was a nice guy and gave me a good discount on OEM parts. The so called mechanic who worked for him only had one tool. The parts canon. Guy had zero troubleshooting skills. He left Tom's and went work for Sears doing mower repair. I rest my case.

Hammermechanicman said:

Hey man, it's just a lawn mower. Anybody can fix it. No real skillset required. LOL

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This is just why there is so many engines and mowers are the junks piles across the world. If it can't be duct tape or JB welded they just buy a new mower.

But our schools don't teach real life skills in the first place anymore. Just a bunch book learned idiots being release upon the world.

It like the saying give a man a cooked fish he eats well one time but teach him how to fish and cook then he eats for a life time. Maybe if he don't poison himself on his own cooking because pay attention to cooking lessons and those fish are not loaded with toxins.

With that said I am called a jack of all trades but not master of all them because things just keep changing and I must constantly learning new things.

Well things here will start to get interesting
Mr money bags has just bought 3 mower shops and is opening a new one just up the road between me & the other local shop.
Now in the past month I have had 3 customers come in with bad repairs done at one of his just bought shops.
In every case the techs made out the item was a big problem to fix .
Right now I have a 122LD trimmer in
The owners had a problem with it not starting so they changed the magneto
Sent it back running very poorly and told him to replace it
I might add that down here a magneto replacement magneto is near $ 200 with labour on a $ 400 trimmer .
Well I found the H & L needles way out of adjustment & the tank breather check valve missing
The latter was replaced with an Echo one for $ 10 rather than $ 27 for the Husqvarna part .
I adjusted the carb , ran 2 tanks through it and sent it back
Two weeks latter it came back with the carb well out of adjustment
I readjusted it & noted that the needles were very easy to turn
Three weeks latter it was back , again with the H & L way out of adjustment
A quick clean, a drop of blue loctite & I have not seen it for months

So if this turkey is going to do what he boasts about on the web page ( become a chain of 10 multi franchise mower shops ) he will need to get some much better mechanics

Hopeful it is not Elon Musk. He is destroying Twitter right now.

Hmmm, That 122 LD I haven't seen around here. I have see the 128 LD. Not able to find out which carb was but appears be one the Walbro carbs. Usually they have limiter caps which someone may have removed and thrown away. But Loctite works.

Well 2 cycle equipment seems most lawn care equipment repair Achilles Heel around here. Very few know what they are doing when working on them. They don't even know how to do a pressure.vac on the crankcase. Even the JD Stihl dealer tech had no idea how to do it. But of course he couldn't find that a bad spark plug was causing the hedger to diesel either. Just return it to me with the spark plug disconnected and believe or not the darn thing started. It was under warranty so I letting the Stihl dealer have a shot at it first as I was quite busy at the time.

My brother started this business without any knowledge other then being a heavy equipment repairman. I had to teach him most of four cycle repairs as he only knew diesels and be his bookkeeper/procurement manager. And I actually got legally tied with the business. At least the time I already had 30 yrs of experience running one person repair shops; although, I had support from the companies I worked for. But locally it was all on me to get the repairs done.

He had gotten a whole pickup truck load of two cycle equipment gave to him. He just put them the trash pile. I proceeded to get the service info and self taught myself the repairs. It took me about six months to get thru that load of equipment but I manage to repair and sell 3/4 of it. Then I took that profit and brought the proper tools that had to makeshift to start with. At first it was taking all day or more to repair one unit and now I got it down around 1 hr for most of the two cycle repairs. But when your teaching yourself it takes time to learn the correct way to do things. Service manuals helps but they assume you know something to start with.

He quit the business and left me holding the bag per say on uncompleted repairs that he already got paid for. I proceeded to complete the repairs and return the equipment. Some customers were pissed that I completed the repairs instead my brother doing it. I just informed them that I was the one that trained him on the repairs in the first place. Some stayed with me, others left.

That was back in 2009. So I rename the business and re-license it. It been a challenge to learn on the fly but I have manage to it as I am still here and gaining ground on the local shops. But I have had some great support from distance repair shops when I need some support on figuring out a problem. Most those guys have since retired so I am now on my own. But I try to repay the help by helping others. I even help out some of the DIYers locally as they buy parts from me and save me from some the headache repairs.

I don't have to con my way to get repairs and over charge the customers. Plus I stand by my repairs except someone else messes with the equipment while it under my warranty. New customers are leery of me but I can't blame them as they have been burned by other shops. Most have been referred to me by current customers so that helps. I setting a Google account now where customers can find me easier using Google Maps. It seems most wants to use a smart phone for directions now.
.

Well this is the 3rd time this 122 has come back
And because I stand by my repairs the last 2 were warranty jobs although he did it ran perfectly when he got it home but started to go bad in a couple of days & quickly got worse.
I thought he was a fiddler and had been playing with the adjustments but tonight I kept checking the settings an sure enough after 5 minutes WFO the L had wound in 1/8 turn
Mind you I ended up ignoring Husqvarnas tuning instructions which I think were written to make the trimer impossible to tune

5 turns out on the H needle before it started to 4 stroke
So I did my normal routine of finding the mid way between a lean misfire & rich misfire on the L needle
then the same on the H
Then readjust the L
then enrichen the H till the revs just start to drop
Best it would do was a rock steady 10,000 rpm with a 3000 rpm idle

On carbs with needles that walk i use VibraTite VC-3. Doesn't get rock hard.

I wonder how they think can adjust the idle speed with the engine stop. I never been able to do that.

Sometimes you just have use your best judgement on tuning from experience. The only OEM tuning guide that I have found that seems work is on the Echo equipment. All others seems to written by non techs. They got their grits and gravy together.

Anyway five turns seems to be excessive when the base tuning for Walbro carbs is 1-1/2 turns each.

StarTech said:

I wonder how they think can adjust the idle speed with the engine stop. I never been able to do that.

Sometimes you just have use your best judgement on tuning from experience. The only OEM tuning guide that I have found that seems work is on the Echo equipment. All others seems to written by non techs. They got their grits and gravy together.

Anyway five turns seems to be excessive when the base tuning for Walbro carbs is 1-1/2 turns each.

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Some of the newer carbs which I am assuming that Bert is talking about have a 3-1/2 to 4 turn starting point. Normally seen on the friction adjust screw carbs as opposed to the spring tension screws.

Hmmm, I will have to watch for those. Thanks for the heads up on that.

The only ones that I seen with many turns has been those Poulan air head ones on the chainsaws.

Oh I reckon I go out and fight the cold/rain. I got a JD SST on the yard. Replace the $700 hood yesterday. voltage regulator, and air filter. Customer seems to think he has carb problem but it may just been that clogged air filter.

ILENGINE said:

Some of the newer carbs which I am assuming that Bert is talking about have a 3-1/2 to 4 turn starting point. Normally seen on the friction adjust screw carbs as opposed to the spring tension screws.

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Yes it is one of those newer EPA carbs with really fine threads , no springs and originally caps on both needles
FWIW
The initial set up is H =1 & L = 1.5
The final adjustment was H = 1 & 15/16 L = 1 & 3/8
I could never get it to 11,000 rpm
I have a funny feeling that the previous "mechanic" has messed up the jet holes and may have even mixed up the jets
The needles measured the exact same length ( never seen that before ) and the tapers looked visually the same .
In retro spec I should have replaced the carb but we can always do a better job in hindsight & the owner was about to toss the trimmer he just spent 1/2 the new price on a repair that did not work so I was trying extra hard to keep costs down.

bertsmobile1 said:

Yes it is one of those newer EPA carbs with really fine threads , no springs and originally caps on both needles
FWIW
The initial set up is H =1 & L = 1.5
The final adjustment was H = 1 & 15/16 L = 1 & 3/8
I could never get it to 11,000 rpm
I have a funny feeling that the previous "mechanic" has messed up the jet holes and may have even mixed up the jets
The needles measured the exact same length ( never seen that before ) and the tapers looked visually the same .
In retro spec I should have replaced the carb but we can always do a better job in hindsight & the owner was about to toss the trimmer he just spent 1/2 the new price on a repair that did not woI havrk so I was trying extra hard to keep costs down.

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I have seen the needles the same length but different thread. I have seen them with the same thread, but different shape tip. And in some cases they are identical. Some of style carb use an O ring to create friction on the needles to hold them in place.

ILENGINE said:

I have seen the needles the same length but different thread. I have seen them with the same thread, but different shape tip. And in some cases they are identical. Some of style carb use an O ring to create friction on the needles to hold them in place.

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Yes they are all over the place depending on the OEM of the carburetors. Zama seems to holding to a standard of a long and short ones. But honestly I haven't pay much attention lately to the needles as I rarely remove them since I gotten the USC. Walbro did at one time used different diameter screws. And yes some use o-rings used as a fiction device which must be replaced every so often. With all after markets out there, there no telling what we will see in the future.

It is like all different adjustment tools we have to have now when in the past we only needed a couple different ones. I think I have now 13 different ones. I just had to get an octagon tool for Stihl carburetors. And I just wondering when I going have to buy a set Pentagon sockets. Sometime I think all the tool manufactures are in cahoots with equipment manufactures so just we buy more tools.

Hammermechanicman said:

Doesn't get rock hard.

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I think they've got pills that will help with that..

Sorry, couldn't pass that one up..

Although they can kill you. I got a customer that nearly died because of them.

Been married 40 years. You figure it out.

Hammermechanicman said:

Been married 40 years. You figure it out.

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So when is your next parole hearing? I have been free for 63 yrs now.

Mine has put up with me long enough she is up for sainthood. she quit saying " how much was that" years ago and just says "what is it?". I called her once and said go to the bank and take out $800 so i can buy a gun. She just said "OK" . Daughter of a dairy farmer. She knows what it is like to do without and what hard work is.