Taking The Plunge In The Middle Of Winter

 Deciding to start tinkering with Small Engines in the middle of winter, with a 3000PSi Pressure washer, made by Briggs and Stratton.
Well, I figured it would be the easiest way to start, since the engine is open, with everything accessible.
Interestingly, it was a great choice, overall. I learned a lot working on it, and it broke the ice quite well.  The first engine I ever worked on, was a 1970's Sears Craftsman Lawnmower. I had not a clue what I was doing, felt completely overwhelmed, and walked away, sending it to the curb. I really wish I knew then, what I do now, as I'd likely have started my YouTube channel sooner, but I would definitely have that lawnmower today. 
The video, I recently clicked open, and could feel the cringe creeping up my spine, but when I consider how much I've learned, and opened up, on camera, I can't do much else other than admire the bravery it actually took.

Today it feels like nothing to open up, and gab on camera. It just feels natural at this point, but I felt self conscious, and quite awkward at the start, but had to just finally say "Time to get it over with!"

So a simple start into the world, with gloves on, a chill in the air, and an awkward start... I decided to start a YouTube channel, jumping headlong into the world of YouTube without doing any kind of research into how to really, properly, start one.

Had I to do it over again, I'd have started with a minimum of 5 videos.  The first 3 videos would be posted on the first day I start, with 2 more set up a week apart, so that I can get a few more videos recorded, and ready to go, giving me time to edit, and see what my audience likes. 
But instead I went week to week, trying to always get ahead... which at one point, I had. I had a set of 5 weeks of videos posted, ready to go... but got my butt kicked on a couple machines, with parts not showing up, and having to start a different video multiple times due to this. 

Spraying carb spray into the intake for the first time was a weird experience, with my not quite sure I was doing it right, or if it would even work!
Well, pulling it over, and.... sure enough.. 
Boom! It fired right up, and then promptly died.
However it told me exactly what I wanted to know.

The unit has compression. It has spark. And is just missing fuel.
For an engine to run, it requires 3 things.  Compression, Fuel, and Spark.  Without any of those three, it just won't run.

Fortunately this one started up, which means it is just a fueling issue, aka, needs a carb cleaning.

Not quite knowing how it was going to go, I figure I might as well get started. The sooner the better, I guess.

Taking off the air cleaner box, I'm left with the first carburetor I'm going to open, and hopefully clean. I have no idea what I'm doing, but how hard can it be? I mean, I've seen kids younger than my own son (16 & 13) both getting these machines running, so if they can do it, I should be able to.

After draining what fuel was in the tank, which did have some water in it, I got to removing the carburetor, and let me tell you, that was on tight!
It definitely didn't want to come off without a fight..

Now the snow is starting to really come down. It was quite humorous as my wife popped out while I was working on it, and said.. "Hey, you're crazy! It's snowing!"

But honestly, it really did start snowing quite heavily, and I really did have to call it.
I couldn't honestly work on the pressure washer with the amount of snow coming down.

So, I realized, video #2 will be a part 2 of fixing this machine.
And my channel was born, originally going to be 10-15 minute, multi-part videos, with weekly, to twice a week video release, to 30+ minute video essays on repairing these little machines.

Honestly, it's great fun!

Anyway guys, chat soon!

A Lovely Fall

This year, unlike the past few, has given us a proper autumn season. It gradually got cooler, allowing us to climatize to the changing seasons, and more ready for winter. Well, we're never really ready for Winter, but it happens faster than you expect.

Well, this fall was very lovely, and we got to see some fantastic colours this year.

 Yeah, I had to get a photo of the Juke in there... So far, every car, has made an appearance in my photos.  From the Red Jetta, to this Red Juke.

Something different, a change from repairs and lawnmowers.

Chat soon!

How Was The Engine Teardown On That Lawnboy?

 So I have this tiller, which was a real troublesome engine to start. I assumed it had a sheared, or partially sheared key.
THAT turned out to not be the case. I believe it, after a suggestion by a viewer, has the wrong flywheel, as it's likely a lightweight flywheel, meant for a lawnmower, which uses the blade as the flywheel momentum to keep the engine spinning, to make starting easier, and maintain rotational energy between power strokes.

I looked online looking for a broken lawnmower that I can salvage the engine on, with either a Tecumseh engine, or one I can replace the Tecumseh engine on, with a different one that is more reliable, like a Honda, or a Briggs.
I came across a Lawnmower mower, with an engine with a hole in it. I thought, hrmm, this might make a good video. It turned out to be a good idea overall, as I got a better idea on how to take these silly things apart, as I have a couple that I need to take apart.
Including a Craftsman with a piston with many holes in it.  Kinda needs to be fixed.

I have an upcoming video on that, as well as a blog post, so stay tuned.

Well, getting into the tear down...

It started out pretty simple. The bolts weren't too tight at all, but using the impact driver, it made it pretty simple, and quick.

After getting the engine shroud off, I had an idea about recovering the flywheel key, as well as the flywheel.  I wanted the Key for that Tiller, and needed the flywheel for a lawnmower I split the flywheel on. Oops!

The flywheel key, however, was toast. It clearly sheared when the engine blew itself apart. Well, that was tragic!

After the flywheel was pulled, off came the carburetor, and air filter box.
As soon as that intake came off, tho, a whole bunch of oil came pouring out of the intake.  Oil should not be coming out of the intake!

After that, it was time to open the head and see the shape of the valves and piston. So, 1/2" inch socket, impact driver, and I ripped them off pretty quick.

Head came off pretty easy, but I must say, the resemblance to "Truck Nuts" is rather uncanny...

Getting the Sump off was ridiculous! I highly recommend, before you try to take the sump off one of these, make sure you get a grinder, and clean off the rust from the crank shaft, so it's easy to hammer the sump down off the shaft.
What a disaster!

I buggered up the threads on the crankshaft, unfortunately, as the crank journal for the piston was great! It would have definitely been a completely reusable crankshaft, except I kinda made a mess of the threads, so into the scrap bin it went.

The piston, which fell out while I was removing the crankshaft from the engine, was in remarkably great shape! I can definitely reuse this piston in another engine, no problem at all! It's in excellent condition.

Spinning the Governor

The governor is actually still in really good shape, but I never bothered to remove it, just left it as part of the sump. But since it is still in decent condition, I just need to clean it out and should be able to reuse it.

Like I was mentioning about the crankshaft. It was still in great condition, other than the fact that I buggered the threads.

The Engine Block was in really good shape, especially the bore. But with that gaping hole in the side of the block, it was destined to be scrapped, and that's exactly what happened to it.

I learned a lot with this teardown. I definitely learned a lot. The biggest thing I learned about it was making sure to prepare the crankshaft so that I can remove the sump easier, which is something I'll be doing on the next teardown! I don't want to have a repeat where I was smashing the heck out of the crankshaft, and sump, for 30 minutes straight because it just wouldn't come off...

So expect many more engine teardowns in the future. I really enjoy them! It may not be the most profitable way to sell small engines, but at the same time, it can be quite profitable if you have good used, and hard to find, parts for some of these engines.

Anyway guys,

Chat soon!

What Happened To The Scion tC?

 This was probably the worst thing that had happened this past year. The day my Scion tC was struck while parked on the street, and had the front end, essentially, ripped off, effectively killing the car.

This logo, I made sure to pick up off the street, keep it as a memento to the car I lost.
What a frustrating ordeal.

I remember quite clearly when it happened, as I was alerted by the guy at the till that my car was just struck.

Well, I ran outside, and saw a trailer not far down the road still driving, and I thought it was he who may have accidentally done it, without realizing, but no, I was wrong. It was a white van, who wasn't paying attention when parking, and cut in way too quickly, smashing off the front bumper of my car.

I'm assuming the insurance took the easy road on the write-off, and decided that it'll be better to just write out a paid amount, vs spending the time to source parts for this car, especially as it was no longer manufactured by any manufacturuer at all.  Scion, having been effectively shut down by Toyota, and only a few models made the transition.  The tC, sadly, was not one of them.

I have a lot of good memories with that tC, it got me thru some times I tell ya! Was great in the winter. Was funny, because the day I got it, I had summer tires on it, and I was really nervous driving into work that day. Thankfully I had a set of used ones lined up to buy that afternoon, and they were on my car that night.

But when I bought it, I had basically bought it "only hearing it run".. I never test drove it, i never felt how it would handle on the road. I just looked at it, said... "Yeah, you know what. I really like this car..." And went and bought it.

It was a fantastic car. 
I put almost 100,000km on it when it got written off, and would have this year, had that not happened. From 170,000KM to 255,000KM, it was a very trustworthy, and incredibly reliable car.

Honestly, the only things that happened with it, were the oil pressure sensor started leaking. It worked fine, it just developed a leak, so I had to replace that, one of the calipers had seized, so I replaced that.. AND I had to replace a bearing, and the front sway bar links.
All wear and tear items, that you'd expect to have to replace, especially considering they were factory parts.
Brakes, and tires of course, plus oil and fluids were changed.

And then sadly, the inevitable happened. I always said, this car will be mine until it either dies, such as the engine or transmission pooch out, or... the car is written off.

Which is what happened...

Farewell my faithful ride... Farewell..

Chat soon...

Why This Craftsman, Isn't.

 The problem is that Craftsman was a Sears & Roebuck brand, and that ended when Sears decided to end their existence by entering Chapter-11, and disappearing from the market. Sure you can still buy Craftsman branded products, but now they are basically higher End Black & Decker, as they were sold off to the Stanley, Black and Decker, DeWalt brand.
Sears did not manufacture the product, however they were not made by MTD.

Craftsman By MTD

This mower, being an MTD, is definitely not the Craftsman of Old, completely made by a totally different company, considering the model number of the mowers usually started with a "944", vs 

Old Craftsman Mower from 1989

 MTD with a model number usually like 11A or 12A, and this Craftsman started with a 11A for the model number, meaning it's just a rebranded MTD product. Not the quality that Craftsman used to be.
Does that make this a bad mower? Not exceptionally, other than the fact that the deck is thin, and the engine is clunky, and poorly built.  It's a Powermore engine, which is a poorly made Chinesuem engine, which MTD is one of the sole sellers of.
Would much rather have Tecumseh make a comeback, as at least those were manufactured in the USA, vs China.

While I did the repair, I found that it was a fairly simple mower, simple design, simple operation, and simply made to fail.  Longevity is definitely not built into these newer models at all, but that seems to be par for the course lately.

Sadly, it's at the point where they pretty much only make junk these days. You either buy poorly built Battery operated equipment, that usually fails within 3-5 years, and the batteries often become obsolete by the next model year, as something changes, or you buy poorly built gasoline models.  They've been bumping the prices of Gasoline models lately, trying to make the "Battery" models more "affordable", when in truth, a well maintained Gasoline Engine will outlast any battery operated model, hands down.
Just be forewarned that modern equipment, is sadly manufactured with obsolescence in mind. Nothing today is made to last, unless you have an enormous pocket, which the average person doesn't.

Personally, I would recommend buying a well maintained, used machine, as they will often outlast anything made today.

They aren't a bad mower, for what they are, and what they do, but they've been made cheaper, and cheaper, year after year.

That's the one thing I've found as I've been working on these machines.  The newer the machine, the more likely it is that it'll fail before the models it was made to replace. For the cost of these new machines, I highly recommend, buy a good, used model.

Anyway guys,

Chat soon!

What's The Backstory On The Lawnmower With The Missing Carburetor

 Ah, the missing carburetor was such a funny video. It wasn't so much that the carburetor was missing, as it had the bowl nut snapped off inside the carburetor. But, when I originally got the lawnmower, I didn't know. I actually thought the bowl nut was just simply missing entirely, not that it was there, it was completely missing, because it likely was thrown away.

When we found it, it was with another mower, however the other mower was basically an engine & Parts donor, which we happily took.

The hilarious part of it all, the mower was actually in really good condition overall, other than the rear height adjustments were completely rusted, and frozen.  The front I managed to free up, but aside from that, the actual mower itself was in decent condition. The deck was solid, the engine seemed to be fairly well maintained, and even the blade was good.
It was a real conundrum. I mean, especially since the carburetor can be had for under $25 on scAmazon, such as this one right here.

It honestly is a pretty good little mower, with a lot of power.
I really found this to be a fun repair. 
It also was such a good little mower, that I kept it for a good long while, using it as my own mower for a fair bit of time, before finally selling it.  The easy start, and 6.0HP engine on it made it an easy sell, plus when they saw how absolutely easy it was to push with those big goofy wheels, it pretty much sold itself.

The carb wasn't so much missing, more that it just had no bowl nut, or as it's known as on these engines, the main jet. 
It was a really simple repair, honestly, just a replacement carburetor.
However, because I'm me, I thought I'd attempt to rescue this carb, try a different jet from another failed carb...
THAT'S when I found this doozy of a gremlin...

Yeah, I discovered what happened to this mower, and why it was tossed to the side.
The nut had snapped inside the carb.
It's finished, unfortunately..
I attempted to drill it out, and it just did not go well at all.
Sure, I got all the way thru the remnants of the jet, but it was destroyed.
I tossed it into the scrap heap.

I replaced the carburetor with one that I cleaned up off a mower that I replaced the carb on, which made more sense at the time.
I had a new carburetor ready, in case I needed it. But I made sure to be thorough in the cleaning.

After reinstalling the carburetor on the mower, wow did it mow a treat! As I said previously. I was so pleased with the cutting it gave that I kept it for quite some time.  I wanted to make sure that this 35 year old beast still had it in her to keep on going!

Just an all around solid mower, really well built. I am always impressed with these Craftsman products. However the new mowers, after Sears liquidated, that are made by MTD, don't be fooled by those imposters. They're not Craftsman mowers, they're just more department store Chinesieum junk.

This one, it could have used new adjusters, and a deck resurfacing, but for what it is, if it is continued to be well maintained, I could see it lasting another decade or two...

As I was saying about liking it a lot, it was more than that honestly.
The mower was probably one of my favorite mowers to work on so far. It sounded good, it seemed to always want to run, and... I kind of like the fact that I was getting a nearly 40 year old mower back into service.

I hope to get a much older mower back into service one day. That would be a lot of fun!

Anyway guys,

Chat soon!

Blog Posts Are Planned To Post Twice a Week. 
Every Thursday & Sunday Going Forward

The Mystery Of The Lost Lawnmower Engine

 My eldest son found this Lawnmower Engine in the forest where he, and a few of his friends would hang out.  What a surprise to find out what type of engine it was.

Yep, of course it's a Tecumseh Engine! It likely will never run again, but it'll be fun to crack into it, and see what happened, or if it was just an act of blatant littering? 
What a riot! I had so much fun making this video, but things went sideways in a real hurry.  When the first bolt snapped, I wasn't at all upset by it, but when my Philips tip snapped off, I was just a little surprised.. It was new, and Milwaukee.  Maybe because it was in a DeWalt impact? Kind of like when you have a Toyota, and you accidentally park Next to a Dodge, and suddenly end up with electrical problems... Get that Premature Electrical Failure, typical of Dodge..

The funny thing about this, is as soon as he brought it home, I said.. "I have to make an imitation "Restoration" video with this thing.  
So I decided to take it, my son included, into the forest, and low and behold, there's a mound of freshly cut grass in the middle of the forest. WHAT a perfect spot to make the plant, and pretend that we just randomly found a Lawnmower engine near a large mound of freshly mowed grass. The funniest thing is that the mound of grass was entirely random! We had nothing to do with that, it was just pure coincidence. Like the Matrix meant it to happen that way. Almost as if you don't really have any actual real decisions in life, and it's all preordained. 

As for the tear down, which originally was not going to BE a Tear Down. I was hoping to do an actual, maybe, Restoration Video, see if I could get this engine running, or if there were any viable parts..

Unfortunately, there really weren't many. I mean, the valves weren't terrible, but they may be very badly pitted, however they seemed more caked in carbon, and oil... 

As you can see in this photo, there is a lot of stuck on crud all over the springs. This seems to have, for the most part, protected the metal from the elements.  
It was strange how some elements of the engine were just beyond redemption, while others were almost preserved.
The coil, as you'll see in another photo, was a total loss, at least I'm thinking it will be. It is pretty badly rusted, and I don't think it survived being in the elements for, at least I'm thinking a decade or more.

As you can see with the valves, they don't look terrible, but they are definitely showing visible signs of rust, and likely have pitting. But the only way to really know, will be to clean them up.

Afterwards, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them. I don't know about reusing them in any Tecumseh engine, as I have several other ones that are in significantly better condition than these ones, but again.. They're not cleaned up, and they might come out really good.
Only thing I can do is clean them up..

The spark plug, well, that's another story altogether. I honestly think it'll still work, I'm also really, 100%, going to try it out in an upcoming video. 
I torched it off to see if there is any hope in getting it going.. I really do believe it'll create fire. 
Just hoping I don't get called out by it hahaha!

Certainly wouldn't be the first time that's happened to me.  Gone to start a mower, and .... yeah, didn't happen. Why? Oh, well, I mean, my videos are all 

"Brought To You By
A Forgotten Spark
Plug Wire"

So it's not all that uncommon for me to completely forget to reattach the spark plug wire.

Taking off the flywheel was another ordeal, and one that I'm glad I've started using my air-hammer to get off. It makes life a lot easier. No smashing the crankshaft with a hammer, just get the air chisel out, and give it a quick "Brrrt"
Off it comes! It's quite the treat to do. If you don't have an air-hammer, they're inexpensive, unless you don't have a compressor. 
If you have a battery drill, like a DeWalt, or Milwaukee, Metabo, Makita, etc, you can pick up a cheap second hand Rotary Hammer Drill, but make sure it has the "Chipping" action, get a chipping pin, and use that, it'll do the same thing.

This part here, the flywheel, even the starter cup, is probably one of the actual useful parts that I got from this.  
I'm pretty impressed with how well preserved the cup is, considering..
The flywheel, being aluminum, I'm not surprised took the weathering a fair bit better.
And as for the magnets, well.. They're still magnets.







The one thing that I thought was absolutely bizarre, was the head. Part of the head had rotted away, to the point that it likely would have caused a major head gasket leak.
While removing the head bolds, only one broke believe it or not, while I was removing them, the head started to come away before I had removed the last bolt.
That was concerning... very concerning, because now the head is completely useless as well.

What the heck happened to this engine?? I wonder what trauma it caused when it died to get tossed into a forest?

The PCV Valve was completely shot, the sponge filter had entirely deteriorated into a clump.
It was all over for that part... and that's when I saw that the engine still had, what looked like, a black, grey, sludge... Turns out it was mostly water, but did have a little bit of oil still in it.

And since there were no holes in the block, and the piston was at the bottom of the bore, with both the valves closed, and that was probably all that was left of the oil that was in that machine.

When I saw the journals on that Connecting Rod, and how scored they were, I knew what happened.

It was run low on oil, causing the bearings to overheat, and the connecting rod just blew apart
Total disaster.
I was hoping to get some kind of movement out of the engine, but it is entirely locked up. Even after removing the connecting rod pieces, the engine does not budge.
I tried with a pair of grips on the crank, and attempted to turn it, but nothing... It is completely stuck.

Rod McNuggets, which fell out of the engine

You can see the governor gear, which still looks like it'll function.

The bottom of the crankshaft can be seen here, and it's very rusted

A collection of the parts removed from the engine

It really is amazing how often you see engines run low on oil. Whether they're $20k+ cars, or lawn mowers.. They all need lubrication.
Not too much oil, but never too little. Too little, and this is what happens. They seize up, and are destroyed.
They are incredible marvels of engineering, and have driven our entire world forward to what it is today.
It's amazing how easily so many governments are willing to just throw that all away for apparently "Green" initiatives (meaning forcing more consumerism, and throwing away more things)..

I am trying to come up with an idea of what to do with this engine now that I have it, as I don't want to scrap it. I kind of want to keep it, maybe use the the parts to make some 

"S-Crap P-Arts" heh...

If anything happens with it, I'll definitely be updating in a new post.

Thanks for reading!

Chat soon!