The Place: My Garage and Surrounding Yard
The Job: The Briggs and Stratton Mower Engine
Assumed Time: One Never Can Know with the F_____g Lawnmower
So, after all the rigamarole I finally weedeated (weedate, weediateded?) the yard pretty well. Hop on the mower to right the wrongs of an overgrown yard and, five minutes in, she craps out and will not start back up. "No problem," thinks Proto-Mechanic, "it's prolly a clogged carburetor... again." Been there done that. Its getting late, so I figure I will do it Wednesday, first day off from the gym. Fifteen minutes, two hours, I'll have it licked.
Flash forward to Wednesday. With the practiced hands of a barely functioning monkey I remove the carburetor, blow that sucker out with some compressed air, reattach the offending part and volia... the mower scoffs at me. F______G MOWER!
This of course neccesitates a call. I place that call to Master of Sport Mechanic and All-Round Great Guy, My Personal Mechanicing Lifeline Terry, who suggests carburetor cleaner instead. Makes sense to me. So, I go to the wall of solvents at Advanced Auto Parts (no theme music, just happens to be on the way to pick up Gage) and after staring at the wall for five minutes debating wether to spend 8 bucks on Sea-Foam cleaner, I find the Carb Cleaner on the bottom shelf for a buck and ninety nine. Back to the house, remove the carburetor with the steady hands of an alcoholic surgeon, blow that sucker out, wipe excess carb cleaner from my glasses and face, reattach the offending part and voila... the mower laughs at me in a choking, not-gonna-start for you kinda way. F______g Mower.
Move it on up to the Eastside of Saturday. Off comes the carburetor pretty easily, familiarity breeds ability AND contempt. Everything looks right. Put it back on and the carburetor is flooding the engine. I mean pouring gas out of every orifice. Does not seem like that is a good thing. Off comes the carburetor. I do it with my eyes closed. Not true, but it is getting to be old hat (CONTEMPT!!!) by now. Put it back on just as easily. No gas pouring out. Turn the key. Son of a bitch.
Out comes the phone and... the answer. Master of Sport Mechanic and All-Round Great Guy, My Personal Mechanicing Lifeline Terry asks if there was gas in the bowl. I say there was. Then he says "Well, if there is a gas in the bowl, it has to be something blocking the standpipe". He then goes to the gym. I, of course, have a revelation thanks to his statement. I recall the switch-thingy on the bottom of the bowl from my last encounter with the carburetor. The electronic do0-hicky has a lil' piston on it that shuts the standpipe off from gas flow when the key is in the "off" position. when the key is turned to "on". The piston descends and allows gas to flow. "What if," Proto-Mechanic postulates, "the thingamabob is broke?"
So, like some magus conjuring the spirits, I whip the carburator off, take of the... the... thing, hook it up to the electronics, turn the key and nothing. Actually, this is awesome. With some help from Master of Sport Mechanic and All-Round Great Guy, My Personal Mechanicing Lifeline Terry, I use my new Test Light ($4.99 from Autozone... duh-duh-dunta-dun-da... Autozone) to make sure that the wiring harness works, which it does (so does the solenoid- more's the pity, but the starter will be for another day), making my diagnosis complete. Awesome.
Off to town, two towns, Waycross and Blackshear. Saturday afternoon in the south. Makes sense to me that not a lawnmower shop in the are is open. I hit Lowes, Tractor Supply, O'Reilly's and Autozone... Duh-duh-dunta-duna-da... Autozone to no avail. Will have to wait until Monday.
Monday roles around and I head to the 5 Points Lawnmower Center in Blackshear:
Guy at the counter: "What can I do for you today?"
Me: "I'm on a wild goose chase, looking for a goose." I show him the chochki.
Guy: "Want me to tell you the cheap and easy thing to do?"
Me: Do I? "Yes."
Guy: "Take a pair of clippers and clip the little piston off."
Me: Looking dubiously.
Guy: "See this is a (insert proper terms that sounded latin to me). It keeps the mower from backfiring. Doesn't even do a very good job at that.
Me: "I know what you mean." Sort of.
Guy: "Yeah, they just put that on there to keep you from blowing off your muffler. It's no big deal."
Me: "Let's back up to the part where I blow off my muffler."
Guy: "A rare case unless you get too much gas and air in the muffler, turn the key and 'boom'. but you could replace this (latin) for 45 of 60 bucks."
Me: My soul bulges at the idea of dropping 50 bucks on a lil' ol' nothing part. "Well, I'll try the cheap and easy route."
Run by the house, throw the carburetor together like a Master of Sport Mechanic, clip the piston off the latin thing and attach it like an artificial heart. Turn the key...
It was a that point I started to cry.
I go back to work, wondering if I knocked the standpipe off the carb at some point. Run home after work, turn the key... EUREKA!!! She's running. I let her run a few minutes, shut it off throw all the parts back on with a new air filtter assembly ($14.95 from the ...snicker... Do-It Center) and go to start it back up again. COME ON!!!
So, I go to the gym.
After the gym, I try again. BOO-ya. She starts but is running like poop. I check the throttle, it is stuck on low. Turn it a little... ah-yeah, now we are cooking with fatty grease, baby! I proceed to mow. I mow the sides and little back yard and sweep it al up. Pull partway into the garage and throttle down, shut the mower off. Go to start it agin, just to make sure...
and I blow my muffler off.
Allright so it did not physically come off but
1) I saw flames
2) there was a short, high pitched retort like a gunshot, a sound like it came from the depths of outer space to break my mind and then
3) the ringing silence
4) I said something untowards, but could not hear it or remember what I thought because my brain was broken... like a sucker punch from the Briggs and Stratton Gods: "Screw with our parts, eh, Proto-Mechanic! Now suffer the consequences!!!"
5) There was smoke coming from the muffler.
I felt like the kid from A Christmas Story: "I shot my eye out."
"I blew up my muffler."
So, it only took the better part of three days and as long as I can handle ear-rattling, brain damaging, Engine God revengencers in the form of sharp retorts from the center of space, I should be good to go. Good news is that the muffler is up front so, when I really do blow the thing off, the shrapnel should avoid me.
Of course, the latin thingy was supposed to do a piss poor job of avoiding back fires, so it was not that important. Ya'll see how that worked out. Gonna head to a surpless store and see about a flak jacket, just to be safe.
Total Time: about 8 hours
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