The Story About The Mystery Abandoned Lawnmower

 This lawnmower was a lot of fun. It was also crazy bizarre how I ended up with it in my possession.
The story is that my kids, and I, were out looking for a Lawnmower to pick up, and this one we came upon. However, we had no idea if someone was getting rid of it.
So we tried to knock on the front door, to ask the owner of the property.. Needless to say, nothing. They weren't home. So we asked a neighbour, who let us know that they had no idea, but would move it towards their house to make sure.

After that happened, later in the evening, we decided to stop by the same house and see if the mower was there, and if the people were home.
Sure enough, yes it was, and yes they were.  So we knocked, and when they answered, they informed us that they have no idea where the mower came from, and no they do not want it, but yes, if we wanted to take it away, we are welcome to it.

So, away it went.

That's when we found out that it had a full tank of fresh fuel, as it really stunk up the car on the ride home. Whew! Thankfully we were a short drive from home, and had dropped the windows.

When I got around to working on it, I gave it a few primes, pulled it over and... sure enough..

Running on its own fuel

The mower fired to life, then started to immediately die.
Kneeling down, while keeping the safety bail pulled, I continued to prime the engine, and it would surge to life.
After about a half dozen rescues, I decided to just let it die... except it didn't.
It continued to run.
That was very unexpected, and it actually ran really well. It had definitely well earned its servicing.  
Instead of cracking into the mower and fixing it up, I decided to give it a good washing.

Getting A Well Deserved Wash

What a difference that made! It went from a dull, sun baked finish, to a shiny, well, shiny finish.
Even after the mower dried.
Funnily enough, it had started raining while I was washing the mower, but thankfully I could just work on the mower in my garage.

So up onto the bench it went, and the first thing I had to do was, get that fuel out, and inspect for any water in the tank.
Which, sure enough, unfortunately, while draining it.
There was plenty of water in that tank!

No wonder it didn't like running. If it was sucking up any water, it wouldn't be able to ignite the fuel, or even be able to suck up any water. 
The other issue with water in the fuel, is it sucks out the Ethanol, and if you're running 87 Octane fuel (Regular in North America) and you lose the Ethanol, you're actually running a much lower octane fuel, which can damage the engine, if it'll even run.
Although it's best to run Ethanol free fuel (which can be made) not every jurisdiction sells Ethanol free fuel, especially in Canada, where it's actually banned from sale, except canned fuel, which is something like $25/GAL, which is absurd!

No thanks!

After draining the fuel out of the tank, it was time to get the fuel tank, and carburetor, removed from the engine.
That's easy enough. Just requires the removal of a couple bolts, such as a 3/8" Bolt at the front of the mower, and a 1/2" bolt beside the carburetor along the side of the engine.
After removing those two bolts, you can remove the tank from the engine, just be careful of the spacer on that 1/2" bolt.
Remove the linkage from the carburetor, and the 5 Philips head screws holding the carburetor onto the fuel tank, and you can get it pulled apart for a cleaning.

Well after pulling the carburetor off, throwing it thru the ultrasonic, it was time to replace the diaphragm and gasket, and get it back together, and back onto the lawnmower.
This part is the most 'delicate' part, as you can easily, accidentally, pinch the diaphragm with a screw if you aren't careful when putting the carburetor onto the fuel tank.

Once you have the carburetor on, tighten the screws down, in a star pattern, not too tight, as it can easily strip out the threads.

After the carburetor cleaning, it was time to get that engine oil changed, blade removed, sharpened, balanced, and replaced.
So using the engine sump drain, something I don't see a lot of other techs using, I drained the oil out into a small roller paint tray, as it uses 590mL of oil, or about 20OZ. The oil I use is 10W30, however you can also use just straight SAE30 oil, I just find that I can get 10W30 for a lot less than SAE30. The biggest point, tho, is making sure you have engine oil in the engine to lubricate, and cool, the moving parts. It's actually pretty amazing how many people actually neglect changing their engine oil on their car, let alone their lawnmower! A $40,000 car, and they ignore the maintenance.
After the oil change, reinstalling the blade, and adding some fuel, it was time to go outside and give the mower a test in the grass..

The mower worked exactly as I would have expected it to run. Perfectly!  It did a fantastic job cutting the grass
Wasn't long after this that it was up, and sold.

Never know what you're going to find at the side of the road, but this one was dollars in my pocket.

If you haven't watched the video yet, check it out!