I fixed a thing!

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
04/28/2016 at 15:46 • Filed to: Starter cords, Briggs & Stratton

Specifically, replaced the starter cord on this.

The new cord is shiny and has go faster stripes.

Mercifully, despite having an engine made in America by the Americans the job was done with 7mm and 10mm sockets. I had visions of having to find 5/16th BSF sockets or something exotic like that.

Whether Briggs & Stratton actually intended metric sockets to be applied to their bolts is another matter.

Sadly and despite the go faster stripes it’s still a pig to start from cold.

DISCUSSION (12)

Sam > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 15:54

There is quite a bit of crossover in SAE and metric. A lot of them are close enough that it doesn’t matter as long as you aren’t torquing them down really hard.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 16:01

The predominant fastener head sizes on a Briggs and Stratton used to be 3/8" and 7/16" SAE, with almost no exceptions. A few smaller things could be 9/32” (which would be your 7mm). I’m surprised anything worked well with the 10mm socket, as it’s usually too large to be very useful on a 3/8". On the plus side, a lot of American hardware uses 5/16" on small items, which is very close indeed to 8mm, and to say nothing of the closeness of 1/2":13mm and 9/16:14mm.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 16:06

I have a very similar B&S motor on my mower. They are very hard to kill. I got it for free from a friend with a small yard who upgraded to a battery-power mower when it wouldn’t start for him. Gave it fresh gas and pulled off the eye bolt for the cord so the handle could retract all the way in and with one good long pull it coughed out a cloud of smoke and has run great for 3 years since. Do watch out for that fragile little throttle return spring, though. I lost it when it was caught on a twig while mowing under a shrub.

Cé hé sin > FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com
04/28/2016 at 16:24

No throttle! It’s governed. Or was. We can now adjust the speed manually but it doesn’t have a spring

Cé hé sin > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
04/28/2016 at 16:25

The 10mm socket fitted perfectly so maybe they make export engines with metric fastenings. The 7mm isn’t quite so good but it’s a soft and cheap bolt too which doesn’t help.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 16:31

That crops up sometimes on US market items - partial metricization having to do with exterior plastic parts and the like. 10mm is a size I often see pop up in odd places. I used to service that engine on rental lawn mowers, marketed as a 3.5 gross hp, but I can’t say I ever really had to do much with them. Had one slightly older one need removing bad fuel at one point, that’s it that I recall.

Cé hé sin > Sam
04/28/2016 at 16:38

SAE sizes are new to me but Google tells me there is or was a whole panoply of Imperial fastening sizes - Whitworth, BSF and so on and on. There was a move to amalgamate US and UK standards during WW2 but it took decades to establish, just in time for metric sizes to arrive and make the whole exercise irrelevant.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 16:43

Ok gotcha - I assumed it was a typical spring governer when I only saw the one cable running up the bar. My dad has an old Toro with manual speed adjustment and it is much more reliable.

Berang > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 16:56

Mowing the grass with bald tires like that...

Cé hé sin > Berang
04/28/2016 at 17:02

Only at the back!

Chasaboo > Cé hé sin
04/28/2016 at 17:06

I’m old enough to remember a time when starter cords weren’t attached to the mower motor. You had to put a not at the end of the cord in a groove, wind the cord around it a few times and then pull. It didn’t start, which happened frequently, you repeated the process.

Once you got the mower going, you’d tie the cord to the handle and it would swing back and forth as you pushed the mower.

Cé hé sin > Chasaboo
04/28/2016 at 17:57

I recall seeing these on old outboard motors.