slowindown

1 hour ago, Fishfiles said:

If you have a DC welding machine , there are Chronatron Stud removing rod sold at the welding supply , these things are amazing , the flux on side the rods will not stick to the thread of a blind hole , you stick the rod right down the middle of the bolt hole , it will start building up chrome metal attached to the broken stud  , when you get to the top of the hole , you place a hex nut over the hole , stick the rod thru the hole and continue to build metal till the nut is welded to the new stud   ---- this is the process for removing broken head bolts  ----  if you don't feel comfortable doing it or have the welding machine , then maybe there is a welding shop in your area that will do it for you 

That's pretty cool.  I looked those up - was unaware of them.  I've welded nuts on broken bolts but not down a hole.

I've had some luck with a left handed drill bit set I bought at harbor freight.

Does it have the rubber tipped float needle or just metal?

That's an interesting one.

Maybe it just likes to see where it's going...

3 hours ago, _Wilson_™ said:

 

glad it's (some what) resolved ..... so you did this ^^^^ before (while it was still acting up) or just before this last round of mowing ? (when it acted better) i recall you replaced that wart (fuel solenoid) 

these are things I’ve done at various points throughout this thread. I did the valves weekend before last but didn’t really get much of a chance to test it out until yesterday. 

1 hour ago, 56Sierra said:

Did you ever get this resolved?

So, I dropped a few trees last weekend and the wife was the only one on the mower. And she only mowed the small area of the front yard so never turned it off.
 

But I came home a little early today and started mowing because the big area I cut has gotten pretty thick.  After about 2.5 hours (maybe 1/4 done with everything) I stopped and let it idle about 15-20 minutes, turned it off about 3-4 minutes later tried to restart and it restarted with a pop. But it restarted and ran. It’s definitely better but i wouldn’t say it’s resolved. 
 

I’ve adjusted valves, replaced the fuel pump and replaced the fuel solenoid. I also put have a bottle of octane boost in my last 5 gal can which should have upped the octane from 87 to 88, maybe 89 (the only non ethanol around here is 87 octane). 
 

Things left: insulate fuel lines (picked up foil tape today) and replace coils. Also plugs, though they’re not that old. 

1 hour ago, _Wilson_™ said:

@slowindown while we're on the subject of handling logs you might also look into the fiskars ax line..... retro, and shade turned me onto them, and by far the best ax i have ever owned ...  makes hand splitting chopping and limbing so easy! been doing firewood off and on at the age of 15

yes I’ve seen those and think I would like one. By the way, I cut a few trees this weekend. The pickaroon I made was very useful. Extremely useful actually. The cant hook i bought is fairly heavy duty and will be mostly used as the Stihl one in the video above for getting the log up for cutting. 

20 hours ago, Goober said:

that brass float seat can build up a thin layer of oxidation. Be very gentle with the float seat—I only use carb cleaner and a cotton swab. Scratches in the seat could ruin the carb. Toothpaste is the mildest abrasive that I’ve heard you can use.

 

perhaps the only way the seat can be replaced is by special kits and tools. Ive seen the kits on fleabay but don’t know of anyone who’s used one. 

The carb on my 02 rancher was prone to leaking. I took 2 cotton swabs and wrapped the ends with a thin layer of 0000 steel wool and gently spun them between my index finger and thumb against the seat. My carb no longer leaked after I did this. I didn’t know any better. Maybe I just got lucky but it worked. 

Fishfiles said: “As many times as I have seen " IMO " , I ain't got a clue what it means either , I am not much on letter talk ....”

And IMHO means in my humble opinion. I’m not sure how many humble opinions we have around here. Lol 

Welcome Daniel. 

Well this was in front of the garage when I got home. 
 

The red handle is solid fiberglass all the way through.  The steel is heavy gauge. Seems solid. 

There's two places the hook can go.  It's in the far back one in the pic.  Everything is removable with wing nuts.
 

So this is it - my $16.92 Walmart pickaroon. I originally just sharpened it to a point but this profile seemed to dig and hold much better. I just did a little test of throwing wood off the pile and restacking it. 
 

Something like the one on your rack is what I’m shooting for - picked up the mattock after work. 

The one I ordered is really a peavy but like in your video it has that log jack foot on it. But on the one I ordered the log jack is removable with a wing nut or two. I’m thinking I probably won’t use the jack part. I’ll just cut mostly through all cuts for the log then roll it and finish them. But we’ll see. 

7 hours ago, Fishfiles said:

I iwas thinking of Slow's design as a lever point /wedge to possibly lift the log off the ground and push a block under it for cutting 

That’s going to be a cant hook/peavy which rolls the log. I ordered one of those instead of fooling with making one. 

I saw the ones made with the axe but this extra light mattock looked like it had potential. The smallest one I have at the house probably has a 5lb head and it would be too heavy. Plus the Walmart one has a flat handle so orientation will be by feel first. Plus it’s cheap. We’ll see. 

After messing my knee up last year I need to add some firewood handling tools. I ordered a cant hook/peavy with a detachable log jack.
 

I want a pickaroon too. Are any of you guys using a pickaroon? 
 

I want to make a simple one. They have a a 2.5lb mattock pick at Walmart for $16.92.  I think I’ll buy one and cut off the digging end and sharpen the pick part. The whole thing weighs 3.6 pounds. With the digging end cut off it shouldn’t be much if any over 2.5. It’s 35” long I think. Looks like it might work?

7 hours ago, Fishfiles said:

The recommend hydraulic oil for my zero swing Husqvarna drive system is the same oil Castrol 20w50 

By the way, they have Castrol GTX 20w50 for $19.32 for a 5 qt bottle at walmart, which is about what mine takes.  So, not bad.

6 minutes ago, 56Sierra said:

Are you going to make us wait until the weekend to see if this fixed it?  Don't you have a neighbor that needs their grass cut today?😉

I definitely wont have time to touch it today and probably not tomorrow, possibly Wednesday after work.  I do want to pull that part completely off and see if there is any sort of check valve in it.  I also want to open the cap for a few seconds before I turn it off hot and a few other things.  

2 minutes ago, 56Sierra said:

This sounds similar to a problem with a car I bought.  It would vapor lock.  There's a valve on the gas tank that was designed to let air in as the gas was used but hold around 3 PSI before it vented to the charcoal canister.   It was installed backwards.  

Now that's an interesting thought.  While I bought this mower new, I don't know if that part with the filter is open or has some sort of check valve in it which might be malfunctioning.  In the parts listing I linked above, unlike the manual it's called a "vacuum breaker," whatever that is.

3 minutes ago, _Wilson_™ said:

 

now it sounds like a carb or that emissions issue, I'm still baffled as to why it won't do this cold, but rather when the engine is up to operating temperature but i agree with @Mistercleanlet me ask this... when you take ether of gas tank caps off, notice any hissing sounds ? right after it's been running, or even over night >> (when it's had time to cool all the way down) 

I've not noticed any hissing sounds that I recall.  And I think I've switched tanks right before cutting it off or opened the gas cap to test what your getting at but not 100% sure.  I'll see if there are any changes when I cut next weekends grass.

22 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

Could be made to California Emissions , my Honda clone has a set up like that and it had a California tag on the engine 

Been reading some... Apparently after '11 or '12 they all had some sort of emission doodad on them.  My mower is a '13. Some, maybe later ones have charcoal canisters.  I finally found a listing for that part, btw https://www.hustlerlawnmowerparts.com/hustler-part-603024/ pricey.

Speaking of pricey, it's time I change the hydraulic filters and fluid for the transaxles.  $35 for two hydro gear brand filters from amazon (that mower has a pair of hydro gear zt-3100 transaxles).  Fortunately, the original recommended fluid was castrol 20-50 motor oil in the transaxles.

51 minutes ago, 56Sierra said:

That's interesting.  Does your cap vent?  If not, that might be a fuel tank vent....with a clogged filter.

Well I dug through the owners manual and apparently it is a “fuel evaporation system filter”. And apparently it is supposed to be replaced every 300 hours. I used my best google-fu but could not find a part listing for it. I just kept coming up with the fuel filter. So I took it off and cleaned the two little filters in it and put it back. See pic. They were almost totally caked up before that pic. 
 

As to whether the caps are vented, I don’t know. There’s a pic below. They’re like a car in that when you tighten them, they start clicking. Also in that pic you can see two fuel lines from each tank. The larger 1/4” lines go to the tank selector/fuel shut off valve. The 1/8” lines go to that little evap filter. And then there’s a T in the 1/8 in line and the T’d line goes up and plugs in the side of the carb, so I guess it’s some epa thing where the engine burns vapors from the tank, so maybe they’re not vented other than that filter???

Does anyone know what this thing in the picture is?

It appears to be in a fuel line?? A vent maybe??

It ran good, not a real noticeable difference.  After mowing the last of my grass, I let it idle a bit and cut it off.  I tried to restart it hot.  It would not start.  I pulled the choke.  It started.  I pushed the choke off and it would idle and run fine up to about half throttle.  Over that, it wouldn't plane out and would puff kinda black smoke and run poorly.  It has done that on a number of hot start occasions in the past.

Oddly, one of my friends and his dad bought 2 of the exact same mowers with the same engine as mine at roughly the same time as mine.  They have roughly the same hours on theirs' and probably don't take care of them as well as I do mine.  They do not experience this issue.

1 minute ago, Misterclean said:

That is loose but it won't help your starting problem.  Your problem is fuel starvation from overheating. 

Right. But needed to be done I reckon. The gasket didn’t break on cyl no 1, the left one so I didn’t replace that one. Hope it doesn’t leak - really tight workspace there. I wasn’t too fond of how these valves adjusted. Just a lock nut where the rocker pivots and apparently the pivot is cammed. Not what I was expecting. 
 

off to see if it runs differently...