Yesterday, my friend tells me he broke the handle on his push mower, and wondered if I could weld it. I'm not keen on welding other peoples junk, so I suggested to just find a replacement handle from a junk mower...it seems junk mowers can be easily found.
Well, he wasn't pleased with my suggestion, and he left and went to his job/work.
During the day, while I was driving around town, I spotted a pile of junk at the street curb near a house ...framed art, lamp, chicken wire, fake Christmas tree and ect...it looked like leftovers from a garage sale, people often put out stuff like this for Free. There was a push lawn mower in the mix, but there was no "Free" sign, but I stopped anyway, I knocked on the door, no answer. The mower's safety engine brake cable was disconnected, so I could not pull the starter rope, to see if it had compression, but besides a year's worth of dust and a mouse nest sticking out of the air cleaner area, the thing looked like new...Oh and the handle seemed loosey goosey...but some of those $99 mowers come that way, LOL. anyway, I figure WHAT THE HECK, I'll take it...and I load it up and bring it home, thinking I'll just remove handle for my friend and junk the rest
...BUT it looks so nice
...so I figure I'll try and make it run first.
First, I fix the safety engine brake cable, engine has real good compression...soooooo, I drain the stale gas, clean the mouse nest out, clean the air cleaner, remove blade and sharpen it, by the looks of the underside, it hasn't been used this summer...dry and rusty.
I checked the oil, it looked real clean, but it was low, I top that off. I fill the fuel tank with some questionable gas that another friend gave me to use as cleaning fluid ...Now this gas looked and smelled good, but that friend that gave it too me said he just bought it and it didn't make his mower run, so he thought it was bad...honestly, I question his abilities, but I wasn't gonna try it in anything I valued and I figured this junk mower was the perfect test candidate.
I pushed the primer bulb on the carb, and pulled the rope, the thing fired right up and ran like it was brand new, I tested it out on part of my lawn, it does a beautiful job ...so I guess I won't just give away the handle. But what do I do with another lawnmower? I have 3 others that I prefer.