SUPER Old Lawn Mower Repaired!

Nifty

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I have a Montgomery Ward lawnmower my Dad bought... at least 30 years ago, probably more. I've been using it as my "weed lawnlower" for the past 10 years.

It has run surprisingly well during those years I've owned it, even though I've not taken care of it properly. Each Spring when I pull it out of the shed, I'm always expecting it to not run... but it surprises me each time it does.

Well, this year it didn't :(

I watched some videos (below) and things looked pretty old, dirty, and needing a lot of attention:
mower-1.jpg

So I undertook some learning and work:

1) Drained all the horrible old gas
2) Replaced the gas line that was cracked / leaking
3) Took out the carb bowl and cleaned it all up, including the plugged-up bowl nut (most videos show this is usually the main problem) with carb cleaner
4) Carb cleaner all around everything
5) New spark-plug & air filter

Looked a bit better:

mower-2.jpg


... but still didn't start up :(

Did some trouble-shooting, and discovered this:
spark-plulg-gap.jpg


Turns out "spark plug gap" is a bit more important to check than I realized

Now it runs GREAT!
:celebrate

Finally was able to do some overdue weed abatement :D

163069202_443972066848962_1800118363358948779_n.jpg
163754981_1052424021918137_423692092113755828_n.jpg
 

Britesea

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older stuff tends to be easier to work on, if you can get the parts. DH used to say his old 54 Chevy truck was so easy to work on because there was so much empty space under the hood you could practically crawl in to work on the engine.

I heard an older railroad engineer say that the old steam engines used to take 5 minutes to find the problem and all day to fix it, while the modern diesel trains take all day to find the problem, and 5 minutes to fix it. :D
 

Alaskan

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For some reason I thought this thread was going to be different...

When I read
"Super old lawn mower repaired"

I was thinking a 20 year old horse got his teeth floated... or the 10 year old gander was cured of bumble foot.

:lol:
 

Finnie

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unfortunately in recent years the appearance of new people quoting products or reviews are often signs of people who are primarily interested in doing one thing and that is spamming. so if you are actually a genuine person interested in being a part of SS you'll have to be wary of posting a lot of links to products. right now i'm leaning towards spammer. sorry, it's just too common of a pattern these days. :(
I don’t think so on this one. @KristPom posted 6 times and this is the only one with a link. If you go to their profile and read all 6 posts, it looks like someone who has just moved to this country and is trying to make friends. But they were only here briefly on Tuesday morning, so we shall see if they come back and participate more.

The scammer ones usually post nothing but links.
 

CrealCritter

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Totally agree!!!

It felt good to keep it working and away from potentially ending up in a landfill.

All that said, I'm sure my feelings of pride & success would have been replaced with frustration had I not gotten it to work ;)

We'll honestly, you can actually work on older stuff and almost always fix it pretty easily. It's the newer stuff that is next to impossible to fix and usually ends up in the landfill, sadly.
 

KristPom

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I remembered working with diesel engines on trains in the Soviet Union in my youth. It was very difficult. They could break down all the time. Now we've moved to children in the U.S., and I can't even imagine how you can fix an engine device here without the help of specialists. My son's lawn trimmer broke, he uses it to tear up the grass. I used to do it with my hands when I was young. Here is this trimmer https://trimthatweed.com/ego-string-trimmer-review/ I saw him, the Internet does not say anything about the repair. While my son was trying to fix it himself, I had already pulled all the weeds on the property. My son said this is not the way things are done here. I can't get used to the new mentality, although the neighbors loved me.
 

Nifty

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Videos that were VERY helpful in the process:


 

Nifty

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Oh, and I was able to do some MAJOR tune-ups on my string trimmer carburetor too following this video:

 

Mini Horses

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Great job!! :clap

I've worked on things the same way...hoping and often pleased with results.
 
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