Good weekend

After reading the "Wassup" thread I figured I'd post some new material. I had a good weekend working on mowers. Friday, my grandma's Crapsman drive belt decided to crap out, so got that fixed in short order and was back in business. Last Wednesday I believe, my uncle was gonna throw away a push mower that he hadn't used for 5 or so years so I told him I'd take it to get it out of his way. Its a 1981 Wizard....still has the Briggs with the points and condensor on it. Of course it had no spark, but all it needed was a good cleaning of the points and it fired right up. Finished up the servicing on it today with an oil change and blade sharpen and also fixed the crooked back wheels up some as you can see in the pics below. The only problem I'm having is the kill switch isn't functioning...I'm just using a screw driver to shut it off currently. If anyone has any ideas there let me know. Also, last week, the starter generator on my big Moto-Mower decided to crap out. Even after a fully charged battery it would still barely crank and was vibrating pretty badly while it was cranking. So today I decided to do a swap with the one on the little Moto-Mower, which still needs a fuel pump. (only been down for close to a year now lol) Now its starting good again and can get back to pulling the trailer doing landscaping duties. The black S/G in the pics is the bad one....have to tear it apart yet to see what the problem is. Here's a few pics.

All a kill switch does is ground the point, which cuts off the spark....probably just a broken wire.

I had a good weekend roo.....My daughter is moving from a house to an apartment, so gave me back the tractor and mower that I got her last year......I promptly sold the tractor for $250...4 hrs on Kijiji......and have the mower for sale.......Also sold a generator I had laying around for $300........

good deal poncho!! Evan there is a brass bushing in the generators that wears maybe thats all it needs.. Also I hope you cleaned them cooling fins out on that wizard!!!!!!!

poncho62 wrote:

All a kill switch does is ground the point, which cuts off the spark....probably just a broken wire.

Thanks for the tip...I'll check into it.

tracktor312 wrote:

good deal poncho!! Evan there is a brass bushing in the generators that wears maybe thats all it needs.. Also I hope you cleaned them cooling fins out on that wizard!!!!!!!

I've never had an S/G apart before, but I'll open it up and have a look sometime this week. And yes, I cleaned the cooling fins with compressed air...now to just fix that pesky kill switch lol!

Fixed the kill switch on the push mower today. Turned out when I reassembled everything, the throttle cable was out of adjustment and was not allowing the lever at the carburator to contact the kill switch. A quick adjustment of where the cable bolts to the blower housing and its now good to go. I'm loading some pics of my starter generator to photobucket currently and will post them shortly.

If you figure out how to make the s/g run the other way let me know.

Alright here's a pic of the innards of my starter generator. I pretty much know nothing about these things lol.( including how to make them run the other way JD) Don't know if the whole unit should just be replaced...or take it to a starter shop and have someone look at it...or what to do about it. Any ideas?

Looks like the com needs polished and a set of new brushes. Are the windings black? if so it's been hot and that will really cut down the cranking power. Thats the problems I'm having with the ones I have.

JD wrote:

Looks like the com needs polished and a set of new brushes. Are the windings black? if so it's been hot and that will really cut down the cranking power. Thats the problems I'm having with the ones I have.

Ya I'm sure the windings are black...i don't think thats just the camera causing color distortion. Prior to a week ago it seemed to be working fine, although I don't think the charging system was functioning on the tractor as I had to frequently put it on the charger. I really haven't used this tractor that much since I got it back together since last July. Prior to that it had sat for probably 13 years. Last week I cranked it over and moved it and it was fine. Went to move it again a short while later and it almost acted like it was seizing up or something...cranking very very slowly and sounded just plain sick. Even charged the battery fully and tried it again to see if there was any difference and it did the same thing again. So now just to decide whether its better to replace or rebuild.

I know that you can get new ones off ebay for $120. Thats what I'll probably end up doing. The closest rebuilder around here is about 60 miles away. If you've got a good rebuilder close to you I'm sure it would be a lot cheaper than a new one.

Evan(PA) wrote:

Alright here's a pic of the innards of my starter generator. I pretty much know nothing about these things lol.( including how to make them run the other way JD)

The ones that run in both directions have 2 sets of terminals and 2 sets of brushes in them......seems that yours does not have this.....

I would clean it up, grease the bearings and try it.....I have seen worse.

Well tomorrow I'm going to have a friend who knows more about it take a look at it and give me his 2 cents worth. I know it will definitely need a good cleaning at a minimum. But the tractor is down again with some drive belt issues and an empty gas tank...hope to have both of those items fixed tomorrow lol.

Evan(PA) wrote:

Well tomorrow I'm going to have a friend who knows more about it take a look at it and give me his 2 cents worth. I know it will definitely need a good cleaning at a minimum. But the tractor is down again with some drive belt issues and an empty gas tank...hope to have both of those items fixed tomorrow lol.

If you had fixed the baby Moto a year ago when the fuel pump went out you would have a backup Moto now to fix the big Moto up with all the work you plan to do to it.

I'll fix the baby moto mower in due time...anyways, today the starter generator got some repair done to it. It got a thorough cleaning as well as a new bearing, then my dad spray painted it black. Tomorrow I'll test it out to see if its in working order again. Now just need one replacement drive belt and the tractor should be good to go again.

Tonight I decided to give the repaired SG a try. 1st tried it with a set of jumpers with no load on it. It didn't sound right to me, but I wanted to see what it was like with a load on it, so I put it on the small moto-mower and tensioned it up good, and then put a known good battery on it. To make a long story short, its working like a big piece of crap....basically like it was before. Still cranks very slowly and acts like its dragging really bad, almost to the point its making it vibrate badly. Of course, the inside was cleaned really well, and my dad replaced the bearing right behind the pulley, then gave the outside case a quick paint job. So back to the drawing board...may have to take it to someone to see what exactly the problem is. Oh well at least I did get a new spark plug installed in the push mower today.