Thursday, July 20, 2017

Gifts

I was recently given a lawn tractor.  It is a 1997 model.

It stopped working about five years ago.  The owner parked it behind his garage.

I picked it up today.

There are reasons why people give things away.

The original reason it stopped working was probably electrical.  The owner said, "I was mowing and hit a bump and the mower stopped...like right now."  Sitting outside in the weather did not do it any good.

The original owner claims to not be "handy".  I was hoping that he gilded the lily so he could convince his wife that he needed a new mower.
The fuel tank is held in place with zip ties.

New fuel line and filter.  The fuel line looked to be original and was as stiff as a broom stick.  Oh, and it was cracked.

Purged the float bowl.  It was full of rust.

New battery.  The cables on the old battery were loose.  I wonder if that was the original problem.

With the new battery installed I can hear relays clicking  but the starter is not kicking in.  The next thing I should check is to see if the engine is frozen up.  No point in pouring more money into this if the motor is trash.  If I can roll the motor over by hand then I need to check the voltage at the starter and work backwards (or forward) from there.

Probably would not hurt to throw the charger on the new battery.

1 comment:

  1. I paid $300 for a running JD mower. Put an additional $300 in fixing the trailer to bring it down here (long sad story) and new parts for the mower itself which I found online. Never, ever worked right.
    Gave it away this Spring to a mechanic guy who can't get it to run either. Sigh. Maybe cut your loses and shoot the damn thing.

    ReplyDelete

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