Part 2: Black Smoke from my Lawn Mower

The silver lining in tonight's clouds is almost visible but the
never-ending saga of my MTD Yard Machine lawn mower continues. My
brother responded to my original post here
http://www.chromiloamin.com/2012/05/black-smoke-coming-out-of-my-lawn-mower.html
saying that I basically need to do standard maintenance on the mower,
like replace the motor oil on it, check the filter, etc. #DOH #FAIL.

I removed the spark plug and air filter, then checked that the oil
dipstick showed empty, and finally headed out to purchase the
following:

1) Motomaster 4-cycle SAE 30 small engine motor oil;
2) Champion RJ19LM small motor spark plug; and
3) Briggs & Stratton 272235S air filter.

These 3 parts and accessories purchased from CanadianTire set me back
$22 including taxes. Fast-forward a few hours later, I finished
maintenance on my mower, and was ready to start her up. It started
fine with no black smoke so I was fairly happy at that point. I was
able to trim through a few patch of grass when suddenly BAM...

... the wire cable to the gas push bar snapped renderring the mower
non-startable. I'll now have to find a way to re-connect the cut cable
and soon because dandelions are starting to sprout in my yard. I
wonder if I should just call it off on this clunker and buy a new one?
:(

Comments

Success Story Renewing my Okta Maintenance Certification thru Examity

The Okta Certified Professional certification had to be renewed every 2 years and my maintenance exam was due on July 30, 2023. I was confident about passing the exam because I had just completed an HRIS mastering project and Okta. However, the exam format was unnatural using DOMC (discreet option multiple choice), so I had to study and review a fair bit of material to prepare. After studying a decent amount, I scheduled my exam for Tuesday, June 27, 2023. After hitting the next page, there was an error so I hit the back button and tried again. I was able to get it scheduled but didn't know that the exam date was actually scheduled for Sunday, June 25, 2023, for some reason. There was a confirmation email stating that but of course, I did not read it because I was focused on the Tuesday, June 27th date. I continued cramming until Tuesday but realized in horror that I was a no-show when I logged in 30 minutes before the exam at 10:30pm. If you have ever done offsite exams, yo...

How to Fix your Car A/C on a Budget?

I didn’t want to fix my car’s air condition system since it stopped blowing cold air close to 2 years ago now. I was delaying it because the initial quote I received was for $1200 after having spent about $200 for a failed compressor recharge at Vancouver Transmission Ltd. The pressure was not stable, so they said there was a leak and after running a diagnostic, they concluded it was compressor itself. They quoted about $1200 for the repair and that’s where I left it at because I couldn’t justify spending that much on a 2006 Accord with over 400K mileage. I realized how important air condition system was these past summer seasons when we were stuck in traffic headed to Seattle/Portland in 30 C heat. My family suffered through that trip and wife almost had a heat stroke. I decided to call my mobile mechanic to quote on the compressor replacement and recharge. It was much better at $550 and $175 to get it recharged at VAP Auto. Total would have been cheaper than taking it back to Vancouv...

Fixing the "Check Engine" Light in my Car Dashboard

I have a Honda Accord 2006 with a check engine light on the dashboard for the longest time. I had planned to use this car for my son's road test and didn't think that this alert would disqualify the car from being used for the road test by the ICBC staff. So here is the comedy of errors that happened working with my mobile mechanic to get the light to reset and how much it ended up costing me. My son’s driving instructor said he had an OBD sensor that we can use reset the error codes that displays the check-engine light. I bought one from Amazon for $30 https://a.co/d/4sEiJYb and used that to check the existing error codes. There 8 error codes with their descriptions, namely: P0141 - O2 Sensor Heater Circuit Bank 1 Sensor 2 P0325 - Knock Sensor 1 Circuit Bank 1 or Single Sensor P0301 - Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected P0303 - Cylinder 3 Misfire Detected P1157 - Manufacturer Control P0134 - O2 Sensor Circuit No activity detected Bank 1 Sensor 1 The remaining 2 error codes were P01...

Chromilo Amin

Search This Blog