Lawnmowers Can Be A Headache

When we moved here to Kentucky I brought along an old push type lawnmower that had been left with the house we bought in late 1999.  It was several years old then and we used it regularly until moving here.  I mowed the large lawn that went with the old mobile home we rented in town all summer long in 2004.  By the time I started mowing here around the house it was finally beginning to fall apart.  I purchased the least expensive mower Wal-Mart had in the store.  After 5 summers it was also having problems.  The metal was breaking out where the wheels mounted causing the wheels to flop over and there wasn’t much one could do to repair this.  The engine was not running right either.  I replaced a diaphragm in the carburetor (I hope this spelling meets your approval as there are 4 different possibilities in the dictionary!) but it still wasn’t running as it should.

Danny had an old mower that someone had given him that had the recoil starter messed up.  He said I could have it so I worked with it and got the starter fixed but I could not get it to run.  With some starter fluid sprayed into the carburetor it would fire and burn out the fluid but wouldn’t keep running.  I discovered that the intake manifold, which was made of plastic, was broken on the end that attached to the carb.  I bought a new one and I still couldn’t get it to run until I took the carb off and cleaned it.  I did some mowing with it but the engine wouldn’t stay at the RPMs I needed.  A throttle cable should fix that, I thought.  So, I purchased a universal throttle cable.  I soon discovered that I needed a small cable clamp to hold the cable.  I checked with the largest mower dealer in our nearby “big” town.  They didn’t have such an animal.  They referred me to another business which also didn’t have such a clamp.  I decided I could make my own.

Now that everything was back together I should have been back in business.  But, again the engine didn’t want to start.  While pulling and pulling the starter rope snapped.  Now, that shouldn’t be a big problem.  I’ve rewound many recoil starter springs BUT this one was different.  I couldn’t seem to figure out how it had to be done.  Searching the internet I could find parts manuals, operator manuals but no info on how to rewind the spring in the recoil starter.  I found where I could purchase a repair manual for $20.00 or so.

Needless to say, about this time I was tired of working with old worn out mowers.  So, yesterday morning I went mower shopping.  I was hoping that maybe some of the stores would be putting mowers on clearance this late in the summer.  Lowes had a good selection but no clearance sale.  TSC has only ONE push type in stock but they weren’t discounting it.  They told me that they had purchased fewer mowers this year and had planned to sell all inventory.  Wal-Mart was putting their mowers on clearance but I didn’t find what I really liked.  So, I went back to Lowes and was able to buy one that seemed to meet my needs.  Hopefully it will last as long as I will need a lawnmower.