I went trash picking and found a mid 90s snapper mower needing some love. lets bring it up on the repair bench, see what it needs, and combine it with the other free snapper from last fall that had a bad engine.
one mans junk is another mans treasure…
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Hi Darren , so as for the gas tank leaks- due from the heat of the Eng and or left out in the sun when the gas fumes expand ( as it does in the cans ) it slowly stresses the seam and eventually causes it to separate hence the leaks are almost always at that seam . This was from a training session at a manufacturing company.
Where did you get the orange tray you put you parts in?
That is a beautiful place to eat on that bridge with a view , wih they had that here !
See the moss is all green.
It’s turning into a John Deer!
There is your dinner.
There’s your dinner.
looks like 2 stroke fuel
did some ass shoot the lights on the covered bridge?
👍
How come people in your neighborhood through out stuff that is fixable when people in neighborhood sell used toothbrush in garage sales.
Love the videos and seeing the sights in your area. Keep up the good work and thanks for sharing.
Man, I love seeing all these comments and interesting stories, so I thought I'd share mine as well. I've been watching your channel for I think over 3 years now, and I learn something new each video! I've watched at least a hundred of your videos I'd say lol, and I was hooked from the start. I'm 16 years old, and I've always had a knack for fixing things, and recently I had a bigger project to take care of. We moved into our current house 4 years ago, and with it came a vintage toro recycler ii commercial mower. I didn't think it was much until I did some research on it, and found out it was a 2 stroke. I consider it somewhat a barn find, since it was just sitting in our garage, not running, broken and beat up, and ridiculously gunked up. After finding that all it needed was a new primer bulb I bought a super cheap one online and installed it, I also cleaned the carb while I was at it and what do ya know? It started right up… But little did I know at the time that the engine was not running 100%, after all, I was an amateur who knew nothing about 2 strokes, or how to get it working better… I scrubbed the hell out of the deck and got it all shiny and nice, and had to replace one of the rear wheels on which the bearing holder had broken (turns out it was fixable, but I didn't know any better at the time) with a non geared one, just so that it would ride level when cutting grass. And that was it, the engine ran, but it was gutless, and it didn't rev up to the right rpm and whatnot, but I figured because it was such a small engine that that was just why… Eventually, the spark plug gave up, like seriously, no spark, not even after cleaning it…. It was a weird failure, since I've never heard of that happening, but I tried it with another spark plug and it worked, so I knew the coil wasn't bad… Fast forward about a year… We had a landscaping company doing our yard, so there was no demand for me to even have that mower running, but it got annoying fast because they were very careless and inconsistent, so we ditched them and I had to get my mower running right again… I replaced the spark plug and ran a whole bottle of seafoam through the engine, but I made a mistake mixing the oil in the gas and put way too much oil in, so the engine smoked and smoked and I doubt the seafoam helped much because of that, but once I ran out of the poorly mixed gas I figured out how to do it correctly…. The engine still ran terribly, but it got me to the end of the season. One of the most important things I've learned by mustie is the process of elimination, and sometimes the most simple things can be the most perplexing and easiest to overlook… This year at the beginning of the season, I got the engine running, and it ran just as terribly as ever, no power, bogged easily, horrible throttle response, and now of all things it had developed a knock, but not a rod knock, it was spark knocking, pinging, etc. so I knew I needed to do something about it… I decided I wanted to do a whole restoration on the mower because it's just so dang cool, so I did. It needed some work, 3 of the 4 wheels needed replacing, and it needed 4 tires all around… That was probably the most expensive part about restoring it, because the wheels are steel and really pricey, it was about $120 for new wheels and tires, and I got lucky because one of the rear wheels was savable by some beating with a hammer. Anyways, so I replaced those all around, and I bought deck height adjuster knobs because they were missing and the metal tabs that they go on are sharp enough to cut you… Then I focused on the engine… I didn't know why it ran so poorly, so I made sure it was getting air… I replaced the air filter, I made sure it was getting consistent spark, which it was, and then I went to check the fuel, and I found part of my problem. The old fuel filter, looked to be original and it was absolutely packed with gunk, so I bought a new filter and also installed an in line shut off valve so that I can run ethanol without worrying about storing it. When I replaced that filter, the mower came to life, it relieved a huge fuel restriction and the throttle response was so much better… but it still knocked… At this point I was chasing the knock and I just couldn't figure out what it was… I knew for absolute certain that it was not a rod knock, but I couldn't figure out why it still was happening after I had freed up the fuel restriction. I cleaned the carburetor and it still knocked so I knew that something else was going on… being a 2 stroke, as I learned, there's a lot of things that can cause knock, but my idea was that it was running lean, because after looking at the spark plug, it had a white kind of tinge to it and looked almost burnt on the end of the electrode, but I was confused because I relieved the fuel restriction… So I started checking all the seals in line of the carburetor, making sure that there was no noticeable leaking, and there wasn't, so I then started looking to see if maybe it had the wrong jet in it for the altitude I'm at, and it would have been $20 for a new jet… And I almost bought it… You see, after I saw that the spark plug that was in it was damaged from lean conditions, I didn't want to put the new plug in it so that I wouldn't damage it and have to order one online again… But that's the mistake I made… Upon further research, I found out that having the incorrect spark plug gap can cause knock, because of uneven fuel burning or burning too late in the cycle… Turns out the plug that was in it was gapped too large, and when I put the new plug in it to see, that had fixed the problem… Go figure… It works perfectly now… TONS AND TONS of power, wayyyy more than any 4 stroke mower I've ever used. I also cleaned the exhaust of carbon build up and that helped too, now it sounds amazing, and despite having lower horsepower and torque compared to other 4 stroke mowers, having 2 strokes to make power instead of 4 makes a huge difference in performance in the real world, it's flippin awesome! I have never once stalled the engine even while cutting grass even over 2 feet high, it just powers through everything because it only takes 2 revolutions to make power… I love this thing, and it has been a joy to restore. It looks fantastic with the new tires and wheels, and complete all around. I've had to do more to it than what I've said, but I feel that would take up a lot more reading time for things that aren't important. Either way it is an awesome mower, and definitely holds it's own against much much newer mowers. I've got a little piece of history and now I use it commercially as well as residential. Thanks for inspiring me to get out in the shop, you've taught me a lot and there's no way I'd be out fixing things the way I do now if it wasn't for your channel!