1911
Well-known member
Rambling, insomnia inspired account of how my riding lawn mower nearly went up in a Dukes of Hazzard/A Team/Blues Brothers style exploding fireball today:
My riding mower is a nothing fancy, big box store sold, simple (add fuel injection and it would be the technological equivalent of a new Harley), B&S gasoline powered, American made…
Uh oh, detour rant: American made-disappointment. Bought at big box store at a big discount and as-is, because it had been returned. It wouldn't cut grass worth a damn. Or roll freely-it felt like it had a dragging brake. It had been bought, returned, sent to outside vendor for repair, returned again, then sold as-is no warranty to me. I guess the repair solution for the poor grass cutting complaint was to sharpen the blades and send it out the door. I got it home and tried to mow-WTF! It didn't make since for this thing not to mow any better than it did. Back in the garage on level concrete-EUREKA! The front of the mower deck is riding 3 inches lower than the rear. With the deck adjusted to ride level and the toe on the front wheels reset to roughly parallel, this orphan machine has served well through 5 years of use and abuse. Disappointing that the OEM let the machine out the door so poorly set up and that the repair shop didn't do any better. The last piece of Made in the USA machinery I've had that made me proud said Freedom Arms on it. I'm sure there have been others; I just can't recall them at the moment.
Where were we..oh yea..B&S engine, gravity feed fuel tank. This thing has (or use to have) all kinds of safety nazi inconveniences on it. Must apply brake to start; put in reverse with blades engaged –shuts off; unweight seat a little too much while mowing down hill-cuts off, etc.
So I go out today to harass some dormant Bermuda and dead leaves. Luckily I check the oil- way overfull. I didn't overfill it, nobody else in the household puts oil in anything. Funny smell too. The crank case is full of gasoline! The float needle has leaked and gas has gone through the carb, into the cylinder, past the rings and into the crankcase. Can't believe the Ralph Nader crowd hasn't mandated a vacuum or manual fuel shut-off valve. The owner's manual probably says to drain the tank and run the carb dry after each use. I do that for winter/long term storage, but who does that between each use during cutting season? I spent the afternoon draining gas out of the crankcase and through the spark plug hole and adding a manual gas valve.
If a "gas in the oil" induced fireball sounds far-fetched, think again.
A car with a sludged-up inline 4 cyl engine came in for service a while back. After shoveling sludge off the top of the head and cleaning the oil pump pick-up screen, we added a mixture of fluids (as we have done often) to the crankcase that included kerosene and ran the motor to flush out remaining goop. The motor was idling along nicely and had reached normal operating temp… until. We noticed it had lost a cylinder. As soon as we cracked the throttle BOOM! The valve cover was blown off, oil was everywhere, shorts were soiled (figuratively speaking). The skip had been caused by a sticking intake valve. When the throttle was opened, the cylinder fired back through the stuck intake valve, into the intake, through the PCV system and into the crankcase, igniting the kerosene fumes. I suspect gasoline would be more easily set off than K-1.
We can still get ethanol free gas around here, so that is what I put in my lawn equipment whenever possible. Float needle failures have been around longer than ethanol, granted, but if ethanol can damage some rubber (like that on a float needle) as many claim, and a machine uses gravity to move fuel from tank to carb, and the tank isn't emptied after each use, and there is no shut-off valve, AVOID FLAMING SNAPPER- CHECK THE OIL before each use.
My riding mower is a nothing fancy, big box store sold, simple (add fuel injection and it would be the technological equivalent of a new Harley), B&S gasoline powered, American made…
Uh oh, detour rant: American made-disappointment. Bought at big box store at a big discount and as-is, because it had been returned. It wouldn't cut grass worth a damn. Or roll freely-it felt like it had a dragging brake. It had been bought, returned, sent to outside vendor for repair, returned again, then sold as-is no warranty to me. I guess the repair solution for the poor grass cutting complaint was to sharpen the blades and send it out the door. I got it home and tried to mow-WTF! It didn't make since for this thing not to mow any better than it did. Back in the garage on level concrete-EUREKA! The front of the mower deck is riding 3 inches lower than the rear. With the deck adjusted to ride level and the toe on the front wheels reset to roughly parallel, this orphan machine has served well through 5 years of use and abuse. Disappointing that the OEM let the machine out the door so poorly set up and that the repair shop didn't do any better. The last piece of Made in the USA machinery I've had that made me proud said Freedom Arms on it. I'm sure there have been others; I just can't recall them at the moment.
Where were we..oh yea..B&S engine, gravity feed fuel tank. This thing has (or use to have) all kinds of safety nazi inconveniences on it. Must apply brake to start; put in reverse with blades engaged –shuts off; unweight seat a little too much while mowing down hill-cuts off, etc.
So I go out today to harass some dormant Bermuda and dead leaves. Luckily I check the oil- way overfull. I didn't overfill it, nobody else in the household puts oil in anything. Funny smell too. The crank case is full of gasoline! The float needle has leaked and gas has gone through the carb, into the cylinder, past the rings and into the crankcase. Can't believe the Ralph Nader crowd hasn't mandated a vacuum or manual fuel shut-off valve. The owner's manual probably says to drain the tank and run the carb dry after each use. I do that for winter/long term storage, but who does that between each use during cutting season? I spent the afternoon draining gas out of the crankcase and through the spark plug hole and adding a manual gas valve.
If a "gas in the oil" induced fireball sounds far-fetched, think again.
A car with a sludged-up inline 4 cyl engine came in for service a while back. After shoveling sludge off the top of the head and cleaning the oil pump pick-up screen, we added a mixture of fluids (as we have done often) to the crankcase that included kerosene and ran the motor to flush out remaining goop. The motor was idling along nicely and had reached normal operating temp… until. We noticed it had lost a cylinder. As soon as we cracked the throttle BOOM! The valve cover was blown off, oil was everywhere, shorts were soiled (figuratively speaking). The skip had been caused by a sticking intake valve. When the throttle was opened, the cylinder fired back through the stuck intake valve, into the intake, through the PCV system and into the crankcase, igniting the kerosene fumes. I suspect gasoline would be more easily set off than K-1.
We can still get ethanol free gas around here, so that is what I put in my lawn equipment whenever possible. Float needle failures have been around longer than ethanol, granted, but if ethanol can damage some rubber (like that on a float needle) as many claim, and a machine uses gravity to move fuel from tank to carb, and the tank isn't emptied after each use, and there is no shut-off valve, AVOID FLAMING SNAPPER- CHECK THE OIL before each use.
The ethanol fuel doesn't store for shit and it ruins carb parts, run them dry whenever you can. I use the ethanol free stuff in all my stuff and recomend it to customers. For winter storage I fill both my collector cars with it and add a healthy dose of sea-foam.
