Unless you mow your own with a B/S rotary, don't read this.

When I bought my house in '93 I went to Home De'Pot and bought a $150 cheap-ass rotary mower figuring if it lasted six months it paid for itself over paying a gardner.
It lasted about ten years before I hit an exhaust header hiding under the weeds in the back yard and bent the crank shaft, so I went and bought another one, for $160, not a bad increase for ten years.
They are pretty much the same, with that EZ start primer bulb thingy that squirts some gas into the carb like an accelerator pump does to start it cold. On the old one, I noticed that towards the end, instead of taking the suggested three pumps, it was taknig four or five, or six, you get the picture.
Well, I've had the new one only three years, (well out of any warranty,) and that little primer bulb just gave up the ghost this morning.
Wouldn't pump shit.
These things are impossible to start cold with out it, especially since they don't even put a throttle cable on them to play with, just letting the governor do it's trick for "safe"? rotor speed.
So, I'm thinking this fucking primer bulb thing is just like the damn CD or cassette player tht wold be pefectly fine if that unobtanium but only worh 5¢ drive belt hadn't turned to black ooze all over the pulleys. I still had the motor off the old one so I tried to take it's bulb apart, and found it to be a pretty much unservicible part of the cheap ass plastic carburetor.

So, what to do?
Aha!
I remember when I tipped the thing on it's side to hose out someone else's dogs stinky dog shit that the blades discovered in the lawn, that if you tip it gas tank high, the engine will flood!
So, isn't that bulb just doing a controlled "flood"?
I tipped the mower up about 45º on it's side just long enough to jiggle it twice and set it roght back down and it fired right up!

That's my hotrodding a gas engine tip for today.
I figure at least two of you can make use of this wonderful knowledge...

 

Hm, and I use starting fluid every spring for the first start...

 

I used to do the same thing with my old Maico 490 dirt bike.
Lay it over on it's side to 'flood' the engine when it was cold. Didn't have a choke. When gas started coming out the vent tubes it was time to start kicking!

 

I tried a primer bottle but it's a pain taking the air cleaner screw out, squirting it replacing the air cleaner and then pulling the starter, and it won't fire without the restriction of the air cleaner.
I read on a site that the crap gas we have now won't run a mower if it's much over a month stale and you shoud run your mower completely dry if you store it in winter... that doesn't happen here in Paradise. In January I mow it twice a month and in July twice a week.

Now, just a short tip... or you'll flood it big time!

 

sounds good but my ford 9n tractor is to damn heavy to tip!!!

 

Some of those old B&S engines are freaking indestructible . . . I had a little flimsy cheap 3 1/2hp Murray that I finally got tired of kicking around . . . it was a lot lighter than my other scrounged electric start 4hp Snapper, so I started dumping model airplane fuel in with the gas. Still didn't kick off . . . I've had it sitting outside for almost a year now, and I bet that with a whiff of ether it would start right up and mow circles around anything. Figures.
Some of this new gas is REALLY bad stuff . . .

 

I also dump the old gas out every spring, just like I do with my bike. I should proly start winterizing these things in the fall to avoid these hassles, but it makes me feel like a big man to get something running after some of the projects I have...

 

Oh yeah, I paid the kid that we used to pay $15 to mow $25 for his lawnmower a couple falls ago - I'm hoping he spent the money on women and not drugs. I also have one I got for free, so I don't feel bad abusing them. The free one spent the first two mows of this season sputtering the whole time, but it worked itself out - I'm guessing the first bout of sputtering is related to the fact that I didn't get to the first mowing until late May. If only my auto projects fixed themselves...

 

I think all the mowers I've had spent their entire working lives with bent cranks because I damn well am not about to edge anything separately and the mower can chew on those weeds until I hear it hit the rock...
I just learned something that seems simple enough (No, I am not going to learn not to edge rocks with the mower...)---I bought an old, maybe early 1950's, bound stack of mower parts catalogs (Traditional!) from a mower repair shop at a fleam arket; There was a listing in there for a crank straightener gizmo meant to straightem B&S and other cranks in situ, no disassembly exceot for the blade, which of course is toast anyway if you've bent the crank. It was just a block of metal made with threads for common mower cranks and a projection on one side pointing upward--instructions weren't given in the catalog, but pretty obviously you just levered the thing over to straighten the crank and rotated to see if the projection maintained even distance from the deck.
So, voila! Slip a piece of pipe over the crank lose, bend, then install good blade and rotate while gauging levelness in rotation. Haven't tried it yet since my bent mower isn't vibrating enough to knock off my glasses yet--and hey, maybe the next rock will straighten the damn crank.

 

That's good to know that's a reasonable thing to do.
Maybe I can make that sigle person hovercraft out of that motor after all!

 

That's excellent information, thanks, Man.

I had a similar problem with my Lawn edger that was really hard starting it was 20 years old 20 years ago and was one of those old rope pulls. I got frustrated one day and noticed that if I disconnected the belt on the table saw it would fit on the pully of the Lawn edger. I set the choke and gas on the mower took the belt off of the blade end of the table saw and put the belt unto the edger pulley and then turned on the table saw it started every time.

One day a guy came over and wanted to buy my table saw, I told him if he bought the table saw he would also have to buy the Edger he looked at me pretty weird and I told him cause is one useless without the other. He bought them both.

 

I spent years working a t a cemetary keeping a crew of 9 in operating mowers. Never did see a bent crank on a B/s engine. There is an aluminum shear pin at the flywheel that will bend or shear evrytime you hit an immovable object... I replaced about 6 everyday. Most folks just ASSUME they bent the crank. A cheap 25 cent fix. I have a whole pile of running Briggs& Stratton that people gave me assuming a bent crank or just worn out...

 

Back in the day---about 1962---I bought a 32 durant roadster for I think $20 and a pack of .22 rifle bullets. Anyways---this thing had a "Red Seal Continental" 6 cylinder flathead engine in it (bone stock), with an updraft carburetor on it.----Whats that got to do with this post???? Well, the intake manifold had two 'Primer Petcocks" on it. You kept a squirt can of gasoline in the garage, and on cold mornings you opened the 2 petcocks and gave a couple of squirts of gasoline into each one. Then you closed the petcocks, put the can away, and started the car. Hows that for high-tech???

 

Here in Austin, all that is not mowed almost daily will reach hip height in about 2 days.
At the dragster shop, I got the joyus job of mowing the areas around the parking lot. I thought this was gonna be a great big problem,until I realized that everything-the trimmer,the mower,and the golf cart ran on alcohol! the mower actually had a functional nitrous set up as well (sneaky pete plumbed into the carb.scary) the carbs on these things stayed cool to the touch at all times.
the mower was a 4 stroke, but we mixed 2 stroke oil into all the machines to keep the pistons and cylinder rings alive.pushing the mower out of the shop with the nitrous bottle attached to it was always funny to the customers-until it fired up. it would blow a plume of white smoke until it got to running, then it went apeshit! you could mow down oak trees with this nightmare.

I guess my point is,we had to do the same thing to get it started-we had to remove all the rubber from the fuel delivery equasion. including,but not limited to the "squeezie bulb"

the weedwhacker was much easier-we just gave it a shot of the grease/alky mix we would squirt into the blades of blower cars to keep the rotors from galling.

how in the hell do I still have all my appendages?

 

Thanks for the tip. Mine is about elleven years old and wore out pretty good. I bent the blade on a tree root. Heated it with a torch and fixed it. It throws oil out when I start it now but IM running it the the very end.

 

The same uncle who taught me how to drink whiskey and play the fiddle---oh wait, thats a different story. He could never afford a new lawn mower---just used other peoples throw away junk. Had the neatest setup I ever seen to start his mower. He took the pull-cord thingie and rewind off the top of the engine, and bolted on a big assed old v-belt pulley. He mounted an electric motor off an old washing machine upside down on his garage wall, with a smaller v-belt pulley on it. He would plug in the electric motor, push his mower up close and slip a v-belt over the 2 pulleys, and pull back on his mower till the belt come tight and the lawn mower engine would start to roll over. PRESTO---an electric start lawn mower. Must admit, I did learn a few new words, watching and listening to him slip that belt on----

 

bullshit!
i just threw one away with a bent crank.
wanna know how bent?
you couldn't turn it with the recoil rope.
you could barely turn it by the blade.
(caught a piece of 2" pipe, thus ending the mowers carreer)
you could SEE it was bent

 

I'm also a member of the bent crank society. I tagged a man hole cover with the mower at work. Locked it completely up. I am unfortunately no longer allowed to touch a push mower at the fire station - Chief's orders. Sucks for me

At home is a different story. I have yet to buy a mower, I have managed to cobble enough throw aways together to keep me in business. I manage to get by on buying a spark plug every 3 or 4 years

 

Funny thing was my Snapper I got was a junker dropped off at the local metal scrap place. I suspect it was hard to start or something. It has one of those little 12 volt starters and was self-propelled . . . it was a beast in it's day. The battery was TU so I just used one of those little jumper packs in the spring to get it limbered up. Usually about two pushes on the old primer bulb get it fired up and going . . . it's as tenacious as my old Murray. Figures . . but keeps my moola towards car stuff and not lawn crap.

 

86 toro I've mowed with since I was 9. To start it I pull the aircleaner and pour a little gas down the intake . . . I've got a brand new crapsman rider but don't bother pulling it out if I'm not doing the back . . . also I'll never forget watching my 70-somethingyear old great uncle start his mower with a drill.

 

I had an old snapper rider that I had not used since last year. My daughter needed a mower so I got it out and drained the gas expecting it to have water in it. It looked ok so i put it in my push mower. It would not start so I thought the bulb was bad. Took the filter off and pumped the bulb. It squrted gas just fine, but would not start. Just a squirt of good gas and it started fine. Next week the same story. Dumped the tank out and put in fresh gas, it has cranked ever since. BAD OLD GAS

 

The other day my 2 year old $140 B/S mower stopped running in the middle of the yard. I really hate it because it has no throttle, so I've been looking for an excuse to buy a better one, but not the same week my daily cracked it's cylinder head.

I've never cleaned the air filter, or changed the oil, or even looked at the plug. or even bothered to clean the pieces of dirt I see at the bottom of the gas tank... Everyone in S. FL. knows that what we have to mow twice a week is called crabgrass everywhere else in the country. This thing is abused, but, I said, the daily has a cracked head and the lawn was only half done.

So I scraped the 1/4" thick gunk off the bottom of the filter and clean it with some K&N stuff, changed the oil, pulled the plug out and wire brushed it, and emptied the gas tank and took a screwdriver with a paper towel wrapped around the end inside the tank to grab the dirt. Took all of 15 minutes.

filled it back up, pumped the bulb 3 times and pulled... started first pull, and ran better than new.

 

I bought a cheap-o 3HP 20 inch Murray back in 87, it lasted 16 yeasr and I never so much as changed the oil. It still ran when we got rid of it but only for about 20 minutes at a time.

When I went looking for a replacement I bought the same exact thing, a 20 inch Murray. It lasted less than a year and shit started falling off of it.

 

Checked out the lawnmower repair catalogs last night--there were at least two straighteners in there, a big fixture type thing that required removing the engine ("Little Brute") and the "Little Herc" I remembered...
The "Brute" cost $34 buck$, probably more than a mower, and had lots of expensive accessories as well.
The "Herc" was a brilliant minimalist design and only cost $11, probably cheap enough to pay for itself in one job even back then--this catalog was from about 1960. It was a casting that slipped onto the end of the crank (both common sizes), I think going on without the key so it could rotate freely. A long finger extended from one side as an indicator of spacing to the deck, and above that two biggish bolts went through the casting maybe 3 or 4 inches out from the crank. Tightening bolts against the bottom of the mower levered the casting up against the bend...really neat device.
Plan view would look so: 0:-- ,0 is the crank, : the bolts, and --the finger gauge.
There was even a cool accessory in the catalog for people who edged rocks with their mowers--or ran them on nitro and hydrazine...

This thing was called a "Third Bearing", and was simply a roller bearing that slipped over the crank and was held in place by a casting that bolted on via the 4 engine-to-deck bolts! A girdle for your race mower!!
The catalogs had everything conceivable from the 1952-62 universe for mowers and little engines, including the mower equivalent of glider kits--complete new mowers minus engine so you could toss your rusted chassis and put your rebuilt B&S into something slick.
Damn. I bet I could scrap out the deuce for enough money to get seriously into vintage modified mowers...

 

OK I can come out of the closet now. I use ether everytime for the first start. I think I could get into the "meadow habitat" look.

 

Got a 73 Monkey Wards branded self propelled four horse (B&S motor) pusher from my old man when he moved to Cali in 1980. That suckers still got decent get the job done power, and none of the dummy controls the bureaucrats have legislated to protect us from ourselves (if they didn't feel the need to meddle, Darwin would take care of it and the rest of us would be much better off), but only frustrate 99% of us.
Rebuilt the self prop mechanism and various other small things from time to time in the early 80s when Wards was still alive. After that, up until recent years, the only things I would do to it were clean the plug or replace the crank key in the flywheel. Running over crap would aways seem to sheer or distort that key, ruining the timing and stopping the mower. Until I got smart and stopped buying the cheap bubblepack chainstore home improvement/hardware store variety of key, I got real good popping the flywheel off with a couple of old screwdrivers.
Found a small, old school ma and pa lawn mower/chainsaw/yard tool sales and repair shop a few years ago. They've helped me tremendously in the quest to get the worn out and/or broken bits and pieces replaced to keep it going.
Replaced the throttle cable and lever and couple years ago. Last year the damn thing got to the point it would hardly start, so I threw it in the trunk of my Feather Duster and took it over to the old guy running the shop to have a look. He sold me a genuine B&S electronic ignition, I slapped it on and the mower hasn't missed a beat since. This year it was the dog clutches in the wheels, drive gear and chain for the self propel mechanism. I decided to replace the bronze axle bushings while I had it apart and after the shop sold them to me, they found a new price list. Can you believe double the price in the less than a year (thanks China). Glad I bought them without hesitating.
Next thing it needs is to repair the mower deck (aluminum) where I blew out a 6 or 8 inch square chunk out of the side driving over the rocks in my yard. Probably use it as an excuse to buy a TIG setup I've been wanting for more than a few years, but have aways been too cheap to buy.
My old man has been gone four years, from Kaiser mishandling his diabetes and killing him, so now I'm determined to keep that old mower going as long as possible and (yeah, I know it's a sickness) I've even started thinking about restoring it back to new.

 

Cool mowers from the years of tradition:

30 or 40 years ago, someone actually marketed a ground effects push mower that hovered...I only ever saw them in Popular Mechanics, but they were actually sold for a while. 10 years ago or so I saw one for sale at a flea market for like $50 and like an idiot didn't grab it. Hell, it would have been worth the price just to prove I wasn't delusional when I talked about it...
I have no idea about details or how it really worked, but it looked just like any other small, cheap mower--except it had no wheels. Damn. That would have been cool. Anyone here know anything/have one/have an olde magazine showing the thing??

And--wasn't there a Wankel powered mower at one time??

 

They were called a Flymo..here is a link to one on Ebay.I have seen a few of these,and usually they sell at farm shows for $25-$50.00.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Cool-old-used-F...ryZ71272QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

Wow...now, someone has to build a PHANTOM FLYMO! The little known RIDING MODEL! Rule your neighborhood!

 

Around here, Michigan, you only mow about seven months a year. then you put the mower in the garage and get the snowblower prepped for winter. At least you should, nobody i know does it, we usually just park the mower, old gas and all and then the day we get the first snowfall we try to get the snowblower started. Every spring i could pick up at least a half dozen lawn mowers sitting out for the junk pickup needing nothing more than a carb cleaning and fresh gas, I used to do it, butgot tired of trying to peddle used lawnmowers.