Fixing A Honda Mower That Doesn't Start. The Story Behind It, Is Also Quite Unbelievable.

foreign that's the first time that's ever happened I had a really good friend reach out to me asking if I could fix his cousin's lawnmower and of course I said yes now I consider myself to be pretty Savvy when it comes to Honda mowers but this is the first time I've seen this combination of features and I find it somewhat interesting hopefully the repair will be rather simple and this mower isn't hiding anything serious in today's video we look at this Honda mower and the problem is that it stopped running while being used and what apparently happened was that the bowl for the carb came loose now that obviously caused the engine to stop and most of the fuel would be lost out of the carb until they closed the shutoff valve now I'm going to try and repair this mower however it may not be the exact repair you need to make to yours we'll explore other options later in the video now we're only going to mention what these other options could be we don't have enough time to look into them but if you need more information on these options you're welcome to ask as many questions as you need to no I wasn't given much information about this mower besides the story of what happened to it the biggest issue is how do I know what they told me is the whole truth I just feel like there's something they're not telling me now since I don't know I'm still going to go through the basics first and then I'll tackle the main issue so it looks like the tank still has some gasoline in it which makes me think they turn the fuel off pretty quickly once they saw and probably smelled the gasoline now I hope they checked the oil before using it because you can destroy your engine very quickly if the oil was below where it needs to be now it looks like there's plenty of oil in the engine but we need to wipe the dipstick clean first and then check the oil level on this Honda engine the manual says to only press the dipstick against the engine and not to thread it into it so it looks like it's overfilled however if you look on the other side you'll see that it's right at the full Mark now that I know it's safe to run I want to put some fuel into the carb's throat and see if the engine will start and run for a few seconds if the engine starts and runs it means we have a working ignition system and enough compression from the engine to run now if it doesn't start we'll have to check for spark and compression foreign luckily it started and ran for a few seconds which is great news it means more than likely the only issue is a carb issue which isn't a big deal the reason is because you can order a car but for less than 25 dollars remove the old one and stole the new one and there's a really good chance the mower will be back to working condition now this mower is in really good condition and to be honest it really doesn't matter to me if I give it back looking like this however to show my appreciation I'm going to give it a very quick cleaning that doesn't mean I'm going to break out the detailing brush degreasers or even the power washer instead just a quick spraying will do wonders for it and hopefully the owner will appreciate it too now just be careful where you spray the water try not to spray the water directly into the muffler the air box or any Electronics if they're any I don't mind doing this small favor because it really doesn't take any time at all now it's up to you if you want to clean it so it looks brand new but for me a good spraying will do just fine so what happens if they don't even realize that you cleaned it it's not a big deal it just means you don't have to do it the next time after only a few minutes it looks much better and hopefully they'll notice but if they don't it's okay it's only my feelings they're hurting now luckily it was only dirt that was covering most of this Mower and I was able to Simply Wash It Away however there are a few stubborn spots that will need some extra help to get clean I'm not going to do anything extreme except I am using a new cleaner that's proven itself to be very effective the next thing we need to do is of course get to the carb so we can see what kind of condition it's in and whether or not their story they gave me is even believable what I'm looking for is that the carb should be in working condition meaning there's nothing wrong with it now I'm quite the skeptic when it comes to lawn stories but to be honest the owners really don't have anything to gain by exaggerating a story so far the story looks good and the reason I say that is because the bowl is extremely clean which is a good sign that the carb is in working condition however there was one casualty from the bowl coming loose the bowl gasket somehow broke when the ball came loose so I have to figure something out for it now the float is hanging down like it's supposed to and I can lift up on it which means the needle is not stuck and further proves that the carb is in working condition the final thing I need to do is remove the fuel jet and the emulsion tube and inspect their condition now after getting the fuel jet to come out I just need to push down on the emulsion tube then tap on the carb so it'll drop down so the emulsion tube has several tiny openings in it and all of them need to be clear which these are there's obviously a large opening in the middle as well and because of its size never really clogs up now if the tiny openings have something blocking it either use some carb cleaner compressed air or small wire to clear them now this one is good so we'll move on to the fuel jet so this is when things start to look a bit strange by looking through the jet there should be an opening in it but as you can see this one looks to be partially blocked by build up I really wasn't expecting it to look like this I was expecting it to be clear so it makes me wonder how was it even running with the fuel flow somewhat restricted by this clog now after clearing it with the wire this is what it's supposed to look like I do have a theory on what I think happened but I'm going to see if there are any other Clues before I make my statement okay now at this point I'm ready to put the carb back together and hopefully get the mower running again oh I forgot to mention this but the bowl gasket for this carb is not rubber but instead it's some sort of compressed fiber almost like cardboard I wanted to see if I could make a replacement using a sheet of my gasket paper into my surprise I was able to make this now it's not perfect but it should work I just traced out the bowl on paper and then used a large socket to trace the inner Edge once the carb is back together we can finally get to the hard part of this repair which is holding the carb choke assembly and all the gaskets in line while you try and stab the bolts in the air box through everything it's really not that bad but if you get this part wrong the engine may not start and run so take your time and be careful also don't forget to reconnect the breather hose for the emissions otherwise the engine will breathe in unfiltered air and cause the engine to wear out faster than normal now once the bolts are tight I'll then open the fuel valve and then wait about five minutes to see if fuel will start to leak from the carb however after five minutes I don't see anything so I think this repair was successful before I put the mower back on the ground I'm going to lube the wheels like I normally do I also want to address the comments I've received about the wavy washer debate every diagram I've seen shows the wavy washer is supposed to be on the inside of the wheel and not the outside so why is it that I find them to be on the wrong side the answer is really easy it's 20 times easier to install the washer on the wrong side because installing them on the inside it takes time and if you get it wrong you'll have to do it again now I'm not going to say much more about it but when I find the washers on the wrong side I do try to move them back to the inside now it's your Mower and if you want to put the washers on the outside like you found it there's nothing wrong with it however I'll try and fix it if I'm the one lubricating the wheels now if you get a chance try installing the wheels with the washers on the inside and you'll find out why it's more difficult to do just to give you a heads up if you install the washers incorrectly on the inside the wheel has a tendency to come off while you're using the mower as you can see the wheel now spins a lot better and this will make using the mower a lot easier as well I'll do the same for the drive wheels and this should also make the self-propel work a lot better as well which will then not take as much power away from the engine now out of courtesy I'm also going to remove both blades and sharpen them now having sharp blades will make your lawn look a lot better and will put less stress on the engine which of course will put less stress on you if you can't sharpen your blades consider asking someone to sharpen them for you also when tipping your mower over make sure the carb is facing towards the sky now I'm not really sure what just happened there I've never had an engine start like that before I don't think it could be a fuel issue but I never did join it though just to be sure I'm gonna start it again and hopefully it starts normally this time well it's certainly better than the first time but there's still a very short build up when starting the engine I've never seen or heard anything like this before so if you have a guess as to why it's doing this I'd like to hear about it now while the engine is hot I'm going to also drain the oil so I can change the oil now the oil looked clean when looking at the dipstick but once out in the pan it's really not that clean at all now when filling the engine with some oil take your time and try not to overfill it I don't recall how much oil this engine takes and I do that on purpose otherwise I'll just pour in that measured amount which in reality might be too much oil because there's still some of that old oil left in the engine you might have to add small amounts until you get it to the full Mark but doing it this way is much better than overfilling the oil which can cause some serious damage to it now I'm going to try and clean the spark plug just to see if it will improve how the engine starts unfortunately after looking at it it's really not that bad at all but I'm still going to try to clean it anyway now after letting it cool down I'll then check what the spark plug gap is set to and if it's okay I'll reinstall it and then try starting again hopefully it starts better now the Gap is just a tiny bit under the recommended Gap but it's so close I'm not going to even bother changing it besides I'm beginning to think this may not be an issue with the spark plug or ignition system I'm going to reinstall the plug and then try starting it again [Music] so it looks like cleaning the spark plug didn't help which I hate to say I didn't think it was going to but I needed to try something at least the engine starts runs cuts grass and everything works like it should except for it's starting kind of slow maybe it's not a big deal I'm just making it bigger than it really is but I just want to make sure I'm not overlooking a bigger issue in the future another option as to why this engine starts off really slow and then gets faster is the spring for the throttle plate on the carb is broken or there's something else wrong with it the fix would be to take the carb off for a more detailed inspection of the throttle plate and spring and if needed we'll need to replace the spring or the entire carb so in the end we got it running again however I still feel like we're not getting the whole story on this mower so that theory that I mentioned earlier is that someone worked on this Mower and wasn't very thorough when putting it back together and that's why the bowl came loose the reason I feel that way is that in all the years I've ever worked on mowers this is the only time I've ever heard of the bowl coming loose so my question is do you think that someone worked on this Mower and that's the reason why the bowl came loose or do you think this is just a freak accident thank you for watching I really do appreciate your time here please feel free to ask me any questions about this project or your own projects and I hope to see you in the next video

Channel: Home Garage

Views: 39,104

Keywords: mower, honda, husqvarna, poulan, toro, troybilt, troy, craftsman, craftsmen, 216, 217, harmony, lawnmower, won't, start, will, not, starting, starts, run, running, runs, work, works, working, problem, fix, diy, grass, mow, yard, yardmachine, home, garage, inside, house, air, filter, spark, oil, gas, carb, carburetor, clean, rebuild, ultrasonic, bowl, jet, clogged, clog, clear, wheel, deck, blade, pull, rope, cap, line, bag, clooged, water, easy, simple, mountfield, snapper, self, propel, shakes, commercial, exmark, Tecumseh, transmission, drive, cub, cadet, Murray, lawn

Id: fB9_C-RZW3c

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 02 2022