'Tis the Season

That's right! It is spring, and we all know what that means. You guessed it, dusting off the old lawnmower and cutting that there grass. This is, of course, if you happen to live in the city, where you can't do the normal redneck thing and burn your grass first thing in the spring like we do way out in the sticks. It helps it grow real fertile, but I'm pretty sure the neighbors wouldn't be too crazy about it.

Is it really true that out of all our modern technology, the best tool for troubleshooting a squirrely lawnmower is to poke it with a stick? Apparently. We had a lawnmower that we got used out of a large-item-pickup pile that just needed a little tweaking and it ran fine for over a decade. It might have taken a little bit of effort to get it to turn over in the spring, but it worked every time. Finally, a couple of years ago, it died once more, and rather than re-gap the plugs (that was the issue), we decided to buy one of them newfangled bagger models so we didn't have to rake all the clippings. Craftsman. Tools of champions, right? Not so much.

The first thing it did was shake to spark plug wire clean off, right out of the box. With that fixed, it gave us a year and a half of faithful service. This year, nada. Zip. Major air intake and fuel delivery issues, all made worse by a malfunctioning governor.

We decided to elect a new one.

After a combined fifty years of mechanical knowledge examined and troubleshooted the critter, we came to the studied conclusion that we need to call Craftsman. We've never messed with a centrifugal governor before. But that's not my point. Unless I get a redneck on the other end of the line when I call, that doesn't matter. What matters is the way we troubleshot it.

When priming and pulling didn't work, I let it rest to let any fuel evaporate out of the chamber, and repeated. Still nothing. Gas tank's just been filled. Oil tank's dry. Close examination discloses a gas spot and an oil spot right where the mower sat in the shed. No tools used yet.

With the oil tank topped off with straight 30-weight, she's all lubed and runs for a few seconds and quits. Maybe it's a fuel delivery issue-- gas turns to goo in fuel lines, carbs, and anywhere where a gooey substance can pobbily cause you sorrow over even a few months. But it wasn't an issue for a decade... so maybe it's the air side of things. That one's easy.

You take off the filter cover, check the filter. It's almost solid mud. Good lord, how'd this thing ever run? You've got a garage full of mechanic's tools. How do you clean it? A stick. It gets in between the filter pleats better than a finger, and a few solid whacks get all the dust out that'll move. While the filter's off, you notice an odd lever, caked in... you guessed it, mud. How do you clean it? Same stick. Scrapes the mud off just fine. At this point, you get some twine to tie the safety, put the air cleaner back on, prime, and pull. It runs for a few seconds, then quits. You try again, this time holding the lever you noticed earlier fully open with... you guessed it: a stick. This doesn't solve your issue, but it helps smooth the rough idle a little. You toggle the lever again, and decide that must be the lever working the governor, which is that dohickey you've never thought about before on top of you carb. Motor vehicles don't have governors.

You're stumped. You decide to stare at it and see what it does as the motor idles rough and dies again. Turns out it is fluctuating wildly, and pulling shut at the wrong time. AHA! Now you need to hold it open and see if that fixes things. If so, you've found your problem. You have a very specialized tool to control the position of the lever in question: a stick. Poking it with a stick reveals that while it's part of your problem, it's not the main problem.

Total times that you've used a stick as a tool: at least four distinct tasks, multiple times.
Total times that a stick wasn't the best tool for the job: 0

Apparently, when troubleshooting a machine such as a lawnmower, a stick really is still the best tool for the job.

Problem: Fuel delivery, air (new filter needed), governor.
Solution: Poke it with a stick until it works or you know what you need to take apart.