Rick's b.log - entry 2024/03/13

Happy Birthday mom!

Marte says hello

I had the foresight to pop the new battery on charge while faffing around with the mechanics.

Dumping some juice into the other battery.

It wasn't possible to remove the upper part of the old carburettor because it was attached in some way that not only do I not have tools for, but I think any attempt to remove it would likely burr the bolts and, well, it's annoying when things are made harder than they have to be.

That being said, it was just a lump of metal with two butterfly valves inside. The part that deals with the fuel regulation is the float chamber that clips on below. So I removed the old one and popped in the replacement.

Replacement float chamber.

I had, previously, stripped and cleaned the old float chamber and all the little bits inside, but I'm not sure if this did much to help. So now time to simply swap the old one for a replacement.

While I was there, I tore out all the old fuel line and filters and such and recreated it all.

Replacement fuel supply line.

Everything hooked back up again, it was time for the test. Either I was going to have to mow everything like this...

Slow mow.

...or I could coax a little more out of Marte. Especially given as it is early spring and anything I mow will look like it needs mown within a week or two...

So, knowing that the built-in battery isn't up to it any more, time to jump start a mower!

Jump starting a mower.

...

...

(some empty lines for artificial suspense, like in game shows when there's a stupidly long pause before revealing if the answer is right or wrong)

...

The engine cranked, and cranked, and cranked, and after about five cranks fired up and immediately died. But that was enough. I flipped the lever away from choke and to run and one more crank was all it took to get the engine going.
Given that it had to get the fuel into the carburettor and then into the engine, I think that's possibly the easiest start I've ever done. I didn't need to faff around with putting things in weird positions, spraying lubricant oil into the air intake (as butane is more bang-worthy) or any of that other voodoo rune-tossing nonsense.

Not only that, but the problem of the engine "hunting" (hic vroom, hic vroom, hic vroom...) seems to have gone away. I thought it was something inside the engine (as there's a little lever that tugs on the forward butterfly valve to regulate things for a reason I'm not entirely clear on, maybe to automatically throttle back if the engine gets too hot?), but what I observed may have actually been a symptom of erratic fuel supply rather than the cause of it.

So, in less time than it took me to trundle the Western Wilderness with the little mower (as in the above photo), I did everything else, half of the Potager, and up the driveway and back.

So, the mowing is done for this week. ☺

I went to a website called Autoportee Discount and ordered two deck drive belts as the one I have is not in great condition (it's seen a lot of use). They're pretty cheap (six euros something) but way more solid than the crap I got from Amazon.
I also have a main drive belt that I got a few years ago, but that one hasn't given me any problems.

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C Ferris, 15th March 2024, 09:26

Just because politicians keep saying that people are living longer - doesn't make it true - some people have always lived long - but several don't make it :-(

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