Diagnostic Tools EVERY small engine mechanic should have.

hey guys welcome back to my small engine repair channel today we're going to be going over uh some necessary diagnostic tools that i feel are necessary if you're going to be a small engine mechanic um i may miss some i may have some that you feel aren't quite as necessary in your area or for what you're doing um but i just went through my toolboxes real quick and and pulled out what i feel like i use pretty regularly to diagnose problems and issues with my customers equipment things that i feel that are pretty necessary to to do my job accurately and efficiently you can you might be able to do some of this without it but let's be honest we all like tools i like tools a lot if i find a cool tool um and it helps my job go by quicker more efficiently shoot why not buy it so these aren't i won't present these in any particular order um but these are like i said all tools that i've pulled out of my box um that i feel like are pretty necessary to diagnose and in turn repair equipment pretty pretty efficiently my least favorite is electrical can be a big money maker if you're good at it but it can be a drag to find issues but first and foremost you need a good multimeter um digital multimeter um different companies make these you can go as cheap as you know getting some from harbor freight you know i've heard people getting them for free on their coupon deal um all the way up to buying you know a fluke or even buying a you know a fancy one off the tool trucks um not all not you know i a lot of my tools do come from the tool trucks i have tool trucks come to my shop and i do purchase off of them regularly not all tools need to be purchased off the tool truck tool truck in fact a lot of uh tools off the tool truck are just rebrands so in that sense you can you can go cheaper out but you do get what you pay for in terms of you know regularly regular use hand tools sockets and stuff like that i i personally feel you need to go better i mean it it all depends what you're doing if you're in this as a diy or you know you're just doing fixing your own stuff you there's no need whatsoever to buy real fancy expensive tools you can get stuff done with stuff from harbor freight or home depot whatever big box stores but if you're doing this as a career um i mean i i'll i'll tell you what i've used everything from harbor freight sockets to husky to cobalt to craftsman to snap on and everything in between um and there truly is a difference um so take that for what it's worth we're going on a tangent now but um they do have obviously a whole whole range of these and you don't have to go expensive on these um just make sure you're getting accurate readings when you're when you're using them they can be off a little bit um but just check twice and don't get aggravated as long as you know what you're doing um it can be fun if you track it down and make a make an electrical re repair and make good money on it efficiently so get yourself a good multimeter these you can check batteries you can check fuses you can check i mean there's a whole slew of things that you can use on these so get yourself a good multimeter and this one is a klein i picked this up at home depot this one was probably if i remember right it was right around 30 bucks um i also have a craftsman that i use i actually like the craftsman one a lot um picked that up probably 10 bucks online so also in the electrical side get yourself a good uh test light um you can hook this up to the battery and check for ground check for lots of things with this quick check on fuses check if the fuses are good this will be a big lifesaver um again you don't have to this one is a snap-on but you don't have to go expensive on this either um just something that will light up when you got your connections right and be able to check check things pretty quick and efficiently this will this will save you a bunch of time as well kind of since we're talking about batteries and electrical i guess we'll jump into the battery load tester um this is a what they call a carbon pile tester um it runs a load through these carbon piles and it will tell you you know if if once you hook it up it will tell you kind of the voltage and then once you put it on the load it'll tell you exactly where your where your battery stands in terms of being able to hold a load or not i do have electrical ones that you hook up and it will tell you exactly how many cold cranking amps it's got and stuff like that and those are awesome i love those a lot but this is just a cheap cheap way to hook it up and test it real quick you can get this i think i picked this up on amazon for maybe 15 or 20 dollars as a schumacher um unit right here so it's a good thing that like i said it's it's it works two different ways it tells you the voltage um so if you don't have your multimeter handy hook it up real quick tells you a quick voltage tells you if the battery's got a charge to it and then you can test it real quick and tell you if it's if it's going to be able to hold the load or not or if the battery's bad spark testers spark testers use these all the time these are pretty cheap no matter which one you choose they come in different varieties uh i've never used or liked or cared for this style um but like i said they come in different varieties this is an oregon one um it might be a brigand strat and can't remember um but if you're i mean if you're in the trade you know how these work but you stick this in the park spark plug boot you clip this to the spark plug head you check for spark in here this one's i don't love this one it's hard to see especially on lawn mowers and stuff when you're back pawn pulling the recoil and trying to check for spark at the same time it's real hard to see the little little jump across so i actually picked this one up it's a lyle picked this up on amazon for again i want to save 10 bucks maybe but you hook this up same fashion it's actually got two different you can hook it up either way put the straight side on or vice versa flip these around i mean it doesn't it's universal i guess depending on what your application is but this there's a little bulb in there that will actually flash orange um so it's super bright um it's not necessarily um a little spark jumping i don't believe i'm pretty sure the spark actually ignites the light bulb um anyways um this one's really bright it's really good if you're you know you've got it on the front of a lawn mower and you're checking for spark and you're back pulling it at the bale um you can actually see this from back there so i like this one a lot this one's my favorite but spark testers are critical use these all the time just to make sure you got spark and all sorts of machines everything we work on you've got to make sure you've got spark compression um all that stuff to make sure you've got the your engines can run so spark testers are critical got several varieties there like i said uh let's see you got your next compression tester back to kind of what i was saying you get what you pay for if you're doing this you know as a hobby it's it's hard to say you can get by by going cheap but again you know if your readings are off what good is it what good is it going to do you so i mean you don't have to buy off the tool truck per se even as a hobbyist but even if you are just doing this for yourself you do want accurate reading so spend a little bit of money um i actually love this compression tester um it's a mighty vac it's a mighty vac mv5530 i picked this up on amazon based on the re reviews um i do have a snap-on compression tester it's the motorcycle compression tester so it doesn't quite have all the adapters and stuff that fit small engines um so i was looking for something different you know just different adapters and stuff and i came across this and so i picked this up i want to say it was 50 or 60 or so um and i love this thing i mean it's got every adapter you need um you know for any different spark plug hole that i've ever needed um i haven't had come across anything that i haven't been able to use these on so this is the main one which is pretty common so this has been great like i said 50 or 60 dollars this one puts out the same readings that my snap-on does um you know so this is this has been a real great unit for me um like i said it wasn't super expensive but um you know it's going to be more money than you know you get something at harbor freight or um you know there's some other cheaper ones no name brands on amazon as well so um but like i said i love this one mighty vac but compression testers are critical as well some people say you don't need a compression tester if you've got a leak down tester [Music] but honestly it for me at least personally is my opinion tell me in the comments or whatever if i'm wrong but it's it's a lot quicker and easier for me to throw a compression tester on there real quick and see if there's compression or not um in my area where i'm at a lot of people you know would rather buy new machine then put a bunch of money into it so you know basically what i do is i throw a compression tester on it especially two-stroke equipment you know if it's under the 90 80 psi mark you know i'll call customer up and say hey look here's where we're at these things like to run on at least 100 psi um you want me to dig further and see see what the issue is you know most of times it's going to a b c or d here's the cost an estimated cost and that from there they'll say oh heck no i can buy a new unit for 150 bucks i'll just go do that and so pulling out a compressor or a leak down tester and you know on mowers and stuff that's it's critical because you can find out you know if it's the cylinder or the valve and if you need to adjust the valves and all sorts of stuff but especially on two-stroke equipment i like doing this real quick um just because it tells me if most of the time out here i don't know that very i can probably count on one or two hands how many times i've actually done a re you know rebuild or complete machine repair on a two-stroke piece of equipment out here most people in my area particularly just want to scrap their machine and go buy a new unit so i love this machine i use her unit a piece of equipment tool whatever i use this all the time and this has been a good good tool for me speaking of sleek down tester again this is uh this is something you probably want to spend a little bit of money on if you're doing this for money um this is i got this off the tool truck this is a matco brand uh well they've rebranded it i believe this is actually an otc if i'm not mistaken um which you can get on amazon but um spend a little bit of money on these you want these to have accurate readings um that way you know exactly what you're looking at what you're dealing with um if there is actually an issue but this is pretty critical as well like i said before if you've got no compression or low compression you hook this up and tell you it'll tell you exactly where it's coming from if you've got a stuck valve if you've got a bad cylinder or bad piston rings all sorts of stuff this will basically pinpoint your the cause of your issue um so keeps you from having to go in and and start digging um digging around it just kind of tells you exactly where to go so these are this is awesome i love this this particular one it's been great for me um and i i use it i use it fairly often and you know anytime there's there's low or no compression this one always comes out so another critical um diagnostic tool that you should have in your arsenal let's see we're getting down to the end of what i've got um this is probably not a lot of people do this anymore or have these or use them or any anything i actually didn't even pull out the other stuff i use with this like my telescoping gauges or my board gauges whatever but um this is mostly just if you're doing rebuilds or um you know stuff like that just to be able to it's a micrometer basically just to be able to measure um specs see if they're out of spec or with if they're within the limits you know to be able to reuse parts you know pistons or connecting rods or crankshafts or anything like that i've got a whole kit of them as you can see they're still wrapped up this one inches is the only one i've used so far so maybe not something that that's super critical for you guys like i said everybody's different you know kind of depending on what you do in your shop but for me this is this is something that um doesn't get used a lot but it is something that you know you definitely need if you are um really getting down to the nitty-gritty of things and and measuring things um to find out if if they need to be replaced or not um in terms of manufacturer specifications in their uh limits so just something i have um like i said don't use a ton but something good to have vacuum uh this one is actually it can go both ways vacuum or pressure um this is good to have it's got a whole bunch of different connections for the front steel makes this is this is from uh power probe but uh steel steel has a whole kit that's basically identical um if you work for steel or steel tech or whatever it's basically the same thing um but this is good to be able to check crankcase vacuum pressure you can do you know carburetor pop-off tests um you know i do have a carburetor pop pop-off tester as well that's made by mikuni i've got one of those i forgot to pull out but so this is good for that kind of stuff it can do vacuum or pressure like i said i actually used this the other day to bleed out the brakes on my wife's car so can be used for lots of things but good little good little unit there and then lastly last unix that i've got in my little arsenal like i said if if i'm missing something may have forgotten something or if if you know you use something in your area that i haven't thought of or you know something in here that you're like well i'd never use that let me know in the comments below i'd love to get some more ideas or or hear what you guys use but um tachometer i've got three different kinds here and i'm just kind of depending on on what situation i'm in this is probably the one i use the most this is an opama pet1100r it's the one they use for echo uh that all the echo techs have these but it's an opama pet1100r um it's got your all your specs back here two or four stroke how many cylinders um and then you just put this right up next to the spark plug and it digitally tells you you know what the rpm's at this is the briggs and stratton one and don't have do i have the part number for you but you set this you know on top of the engine and you you pull this out until this this is vibrating and when the yellow reaches its its farthest point that's when it's that's when you need to stop you know rotating it or whatever i'm sure you've seen videos or whatever but when it's something like that if you can see that you can see this this little yellow tab at its widest point smooth vibration and then you go and come down here and kind of just tell you know three maybe 31 so it's probably like 31 52 maybe so these are these are pretty good uh pretty accurate as well um and then i've also got this snap-on one as well um i use this qu use this quite a bit but um like i said this oprah one is probably my go-to this one's for gas or diesel you know you select the strokes or two or four stroke [Music] how many spark plugs you got excuse me your cylinders anyways it's a good little unit that's not something you need to spend a ton of money on this this one right here is about a hundred and fifteen dollars and this briggs stratton one i think this sucker's a little pricey i want to say this is 30 or 40 bucks maybe um but pretty critical if you're fine-tuning engines um you know a lot of people say well i can do it to ear or i can just listen for it and that's fine but i like to be pretty exact pretty precise especially when you're doing you know something in particular those hondas there's a service bulletin out for their governor spring you have to switch out and you've got to lower the rpm by 50 rpm and anyways it's good to good to be as close as you can so i actually use these a lot i checked this i actually check the rpm on every machine that comes in and out just to make sure it's it's right in spec or in a in a decent range for my customers so anyways i believe that is it all i've got for my diagnostic tools that i use regularly once again if you guys have anything suggestions tips or anything that you use brands anything like that put them in the comments below i'm curious to see uh what other people are doing out there but this is kind of what i have and what i do so uh let me know what you think in the comments below like this video comment subscribe do whatever you guys do i'm kind of new to this so i'd love your feedback but if you guys feel inclined to subscribe and like the video that would sure help me out a lot um but other than that thank you for watching hope you guys have a great day

Channel: KB's Small Engine Repair

Views: 13,347

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Id: Uqu5nObMulM

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 05 2020