Just bought a mower for $20. (Bonus: Very Jalop ending)

"Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif" (lumpy44)
07/10/2014 at 19:01 • Filed to: Small scale Jalopness

Guy said it would run for a little bit and then stall out, but being the man's man I think I am I thought I could fix it, and it turns out I could.

When I showed up at his house he had the mower out on his lawn and I was fully expecting it to not run at all, but for $20 bucks I was willing to gamble and hopefully get a running mower since I just bought a house. So he started it up and it ran for the 30 seconds he left it going. He kind of laughed to himself and said well I guess if it runs fine you are getting a pretty solid deal! So I loaded it up and brought it home. First thing I did was check the oil, pretty black but it still existed so I thought that was a good sign. I topped the fuel up and after a few seconds of kind rough idle I was able to mow the whole lawn.

So now Oppo I come to you, I know there is a sub-blog about small motors and I hope to post there about the tear down on this thing I am about to do. And something awesome just popped into my head... Martini the mower.

DISCUSSION (16)

JGrabowMSt > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 19:06

Here's your checklist:

1) Air Cleaner

2) Oil

3) Fuel line

4) clean the carb

If it stops giving you issues, you're good. If it's still a problem, you may have to take apart the carb to replace the diaphragm in it, because they get eaten away by the high ethanol content in the gas today. My dad has replaced piston rings on these before, but it's a PITA to do it.

Throttle cable looks pretty new, so it may have been worked on recently. You can safely run some seafoam through with the gas and see if it billows out some smoke and then runs better afterwards even.

Either way, here's what you're looking for .

E92M3 > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 19:06

If you were able to mow your whole lawn with it I wouldn't touch it. I had a Ryobi trimmer that would run for 30 seconds then stall. I bought new fuel lines, plug, and a carb rebuild kit for it. After tearing it down, cleaning it, and putting it back together it still did it.

nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 19:29

If there is a little brass cover on there somewhere, take it off. It'll be full of little snot jelly beans. I'm not kidding. Now, you have to switch to canned gas because the ethanol in modern gas catalyses with the brass and turns the fuel into snot jelly beans. My dad's mower did the same thing.

Vince-The Roadside Mechanic > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 19:54

You are now added to the Small engine blog.

Bad Idea Hat > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 20:44

I think I'm going to do my carb teardown this fall. It's running okay, but a little rough at times. I need to get the blade sharpened, and replace the clutch cable and assembly, and neither is a real major headache at the moment, so...

Man, I'm seconding the Martini option. That's a great idea.

TStoff1 > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 21:06

Martini Rally Mower. Cant wait to see how it turns out. Any way to follow you on this crazy thing to watch the progress. I should probably do my riding lawnmower the same way and park it next to the tee box. Make the HOA very happy

Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif > JGrabowMSt
07/10/2014 at 23:02

1. Just finished cleaning out the air filter, a lot of gunk and dirt but looks brand new now!

2. Will pick some up tomorrow, but my god the grass underneath is packed in. Took me 15 mintues to find the drain plug.

3. Fuel line looks new-ish, or at least is in really good shape.

4. Carb's are the devil to me, never removed one and had it work better after, I could just be an idiot though haha.

Might do a bit of ATF in with the oil and let it run for a bit just to see what else comes out, had success with this in the past. I likely won't spend the time doing a complete teardown since it was only 2o bucks, but you never know!

Thanks for the tips!

Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif > Bad Idea Hat
07/10/2014 at 23:02

I am getting pretty good at sharpening them with the grinder and various files, pretty easy once you understand the angles.

Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif > nFamousCJ - Keeper of Stringbean, Gengars and a Deezul
07/10/2014 at 23:04

I assume you mean on the carb? Took the little carb bulb on the bottom off at it looked pretty clean actually. I don't think this mower has seen a lot of action.

Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif > E92M3
07/10/2014 at 23:05

Probably a spark issue, but who knows, never heard anything good about Ryobi.

JGrabowMSt > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/10/2014 at 23:17

Use SeaFoam instead of ATF. ATF isn't going to do much of anything to help.

Lawn mower carbs are a lot simpler compared to a car. Less work that way. Keeping the bottom of the deck clean could have been half the problem the previous owner had to deal with.

E92M3 > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/11/2014 at 09:03

It's baffling. Cause you can start it again using the choke, then 30 secs later it stalls again. Ryobi is junk. It probably had less than 40hrs total use on it. In that time the pull handle broke, and it went thru 2 sets of fuel lines. I always start my equipment once a month in the winter too so they don't sit for 4 months. I'm going to spend they extra money, and get a Honda 4 Stroke trimmer.

Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif > E92M3
07/11/2014 at 10:25

Used to work for a Landscaping company and we had nothing but Stihl and Honda stuff. It was all great, never broke down once, well a Honda mower sucked half the air filter into the carb but that was an easy fix.

Bad Idea Hat > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/11/2014 at 11:27

Yeah, I'll just pay for someone to do that. I've already had stitches this summer.

KurtAKX > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
07/14/2014 at 10:45

That's a pretty standard Tecumseh engine with a very common, very simple carb.

If I were you, I'd pull the carb off, (take a picture of how the carb governor linkage connects to the carb before you take it off so you remember!)
and then I'd disassemble and clean the carb thoroughly with a can of carb/choke cleaner.

Take the bowl off, slide out the pin for the float. Make sure the float doesn't have any fuel sloshing in it (often these older Tecumsehs will get a whole in the float). If there's sloshing, buy a new float.

If there's mixture needle screws (there may or may not be depending on the age of the engine)
note how many turns out they are from bottomed (do this gently!) to use as a starting point when you put it back together.
Take pics of anything you think you'll forget about.

Put the straw on the carb cleaner can (wear safety glasses!) and thoroughly blast out every little hole/passage you see (including any place where you removed a needle).

When you reassemble, 99 times out of 100 the intake gaskets can be re-used, and 999/1000 the rubber O-ring for the float bowl can be re-used.

petebmwm > Lumpy44, Proprietor Of Fine Gif
08/02/2014 at 20:15

no diaphram on the tecumseh, take the bolt off the bottom of the float bowl, it's a 7/16 theres ususally crap floating around in there clean it up and put it back, it runs when the crap has settled to the bottom, as soon as it picks it up it starves for fuel.