Lawn Mower

Sears Craftsman Eager-1 Lawnmower Leaking Oil

While mowing the lawn with my Sears Craftsman Eager-1 self-propelled lawnmower, model # 917.377561, I noticed the engine and mower deck becoming drenched in motor oil. The leak was so bad it almost looked like the engine block had cracked, but that was not the case. After checking further I noticed that the oil was coming from under the flywheel. The engine manufacturer for this particular engine is Tecumseh and they sometimes add an oil breather to the Eager-1 engines and that was the cause of the oil leak.

In this case the rubber breather had shrunk allowing oil to escape around the edges of the breather and on to the mower deck. It was easy to tell that the breather wasn't sealing properly because it was lose in it's mounting hole where it should have been making a tight seal. The only fix is to replace the breather, a $17.00 part.

The breather for the Eager-1 mower is Tecumseh part# 36557

Once you have the flywheel off of your Eager-1 engine all you have to do is pull out the old breather and insert the new one. You will need to cut the tube that goes to the carburetor to the correct length before you replace the flywheel.

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Lawnmower Maintenance – Before You Put It Away For The Winter

It is easy to just put the old lawnmower away after the mowing season and forget about it until next spring, part of that may be from you being glad to be done with it for a few months, but before you put the lawnmower away you should do some basic maintenance procedures first.

1) The engine should be cleaned of all of the cut grass that has accumulated in the cooling fins of the engine. First step is to take off the top cover, the one with the pull cord in it and expose the cylinder cooling fins. Once the fins are exposed you should see cooling fins surrounding the whole cylinder and head. The grass cuttings usually accumulate around the curved section of the cooling fins as they go behind a cover between the engine and the carburetor. Just take a garden hose and push the grass cuttings out using water pressure. When you spray the coarse stream of water into the fins the debris should come out on the bottom of the engine.

Once the debris is out of the cooling fins the next step is to clean under the cover that was on the engine over the cooling fins.

2) Wash and scrape the dried grass cuttings from all around the machine so they don't cause rust to form during the winter. Be extra careful to remove the spark plug wire before starting any of the work.

3) After everything has been washed and cleaned you will have to leave it apart for a while so it can dry thoroughly. When everything has dried reassemble the engine and start it and let it run until it gets warm that way you can be sure that all of the water has either dried by air or the heat from the engine.

4) After the engine has cooled remove the spark plug and squirt some Marvel Mystery Oil into the cylinder and turn the shaft a few times to spread it around. Reinstall the spark plug.

5) Store the lawn mower somewhere where it will stay dry, if at all possible, so rust doesn't attack the metallic parts.
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Bob Crane is the author of http://www.americanwrenches.com - a site that helps many find tools they need for their projects.

Lawn Mower Wheels – Fix The Axle On Height Adjusters

On push mowers with the spring loaded height adjusters the attached axle usually needs to be replaced annually due to the metal shaft wearing down. It usually starts with a slight wobble of the rear wheels and then turns into an outright lean of the wheels as the wheel mounting hole and the shaft wear down. Replacing the wheel by itself will help for a while but it won't make it perfectly aligned because the axle has been worn down also and needs replacing.

Replacing the worn axle is easier than it sounds. First you need to remove the wheels, height adjuster and axle assembly from the mower. You will notice that the original axle has been stamped on to the height adjuster so it will need to be hacksawed off. Once you have sawed off the old axle then punch the remaining piece of old axle out of the height adjuster. Once the old piece has been removed there will be a 3/8 hole, most of the time. Sometimes the hole is a little smaller so you will need to drill it out to 3/8". Then get a 3/8" bolt long enough to go through the new wheel, two washers, and the height adjuster and leave approximately a half inch of thread showing for the retaining nut. You will need a piece of 3/8" ID and 1/2" OD piece of tubing to use as axle sleeves. Cut the tubing approximately 1/16" wider than the wheel mounting hole so when you tighten the retaining nut the wheel will turn freely. Lightly grease the 3/8" bolt before you put the tubing and wheel over it, tighten the retaining nut and you should be good for another year.
This fix should only cost about five dollars as opposed to replacing the height adjusters at a cost of fifteen dollars each and the parts can be bought at most home improvement or hardware stores.
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Bob Crane is the author of http://www.americanwrenches.com - a site that helps many find tools they need for their projects.

Troy Built Lawn Mower

My two year old Troy Built, self-propelled Tuf-Cut 210 had a front wheel that started wobbling badly. Since I really don't use the mower much I didn't know why the wheel should have gone bad so soon. I removed the wheel and noticed that the inner metal bushing had frozen itself to the axle shaft and began to spin inside of the plastic wheel causing the inside of the axle hole to wear out completely. The wheel went bad on the left front of the mower. The wheel on the right front of the mower seemed ok until I took it off and noticed that it too was just beginning to spin on the inner shaft but it had not really done much damage to the inside of the wheel yet.

I took both wheels off and freed up both inner bushings and removed them. The axle itself seems to be in pretty good shape so I will be able to re-use it this time. In the future I will have to be more diligent about checking the lubricant on the axle shafts and re-lube them periodically. My old mower is a strictly push type with plastic wheels that never needed and lube so I just assumed that this Troy Built was the same. But is isn't so be sure to keep the wheels rolling freely in front so they don't chew the center out of the wheels.
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Bob Crane is the author of http://www.americanwrenches.com - a site that helps many find tools they need for their projects.

Lawn Mower – Briggs Stratton Engine Won’t Stay Running

Had a problem with my two tear old lawn mower where it wouldn't stay running. I was just mowing the lawn and it abruptly stopped. There was plenty of gas in it and everything else looked OK, I just couldn't figure out why it stopped.

After checking the spark plug and oil, all of the easy stuff, I took the air cleaner off to look inside of the carburetor, in the carburetor throat there was a coating of black dust that didn't look like it was supposed to be there. I would have thought that the air cleaner would have stopped the dust from getting through, but instead there it was. I checked the air cleaner itself closely and found an area where the air was getting by the filter and right into the engine.

I decided then to take the carburetor off and clean the dirt out of it. I flushed it out with carburetor cleaner until everything that I could see inside came clean and free of dirt. Then I checked the float and fuel feed to make sure the engine had adequate flow of fuel, which it did. I then re-assembled the carburetor and tried to start the engine. After a couple of pulls it started right up and ran great while I finished the lawn.

Afterwards I went to the lawn mower shop and got a new air cleaner to replace the old damaged one.
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Bob Crane is the author of http://www.americanwrenches.com - a site that helps many find tools they need for their projects.