FREE ABANDONED MOWER! Can We Fix It?

hello everybody and welcome to a brand new video this is a castle Garden XC70 that I've just got for free it doesn't run I don't know anything about it it doesn't have a collector box it just looks like it's been left outside for many years the battery is I assume dead it doesn't look like it's been used for a while it was manufactured in 2006. and looks like it's been quite a few years since it was last used anyway underneath this cover we have the engine it features a Briggs and Stratton intek 6.5 overhead valve engine but again it just looks like it hasn't been used for a long time it's full of cobwebs and leaves and all sorts of nastiness so before I get into the workshop let's give it a good clean foreign [Music] okay I got into the workshop I can now give it a quick check over to see exactly what is wrong with this it would be nice if I can just put some fresh fuel in check the oil and then mow but it's never as easy as that so let's see exactly what is wrong with it my first check is going to be the oil it's always a good starting point so we'll see exactly how much it has in it okay so it looks like it does have quite a lot in it that is well over the full mark and it also smells like fuel so it seems like petrol has got into the crank case that's likely going to be a carburetor issue now this next part is really interesting this engine must be fitted to many different applications which means it has an integrated fuel tank but this machine doesn't use it it has its own fuel tank on the back so it's just sort of it's got this big bug in it you can still see the threads for where the field cap can go and I'm guessing the fuel tank is just like this big void there must be nothing in there at all completely inaccessible now moving around to the back of the machine where the fuel tank actually is I can see that there is no fuel in the tank which is a very good sign it's always good to have these things drain the fuel before putting them away for the winter or in this case maybe for several years and also it looks really clean so that's the first positive it's a three speed with reverse the gear seem to shift okay that's good to see the throttle lever functions and I can see it is moving the control on the carburetor so that's good to see as well okay the engine does pull over okay but that does get jammed occasionally it is also an electric start though so hopefully we can start this engine off the key so my next check is going to be underneath the air filter cover we'll see if it has an air filter and then we'll check for spark now it should have two screws one here and one here but this one's missing how thoughtful of the person who lost it it's given me a an easier job I only have to remove one okay this should lift off yeah there's nothing that's been changed for a while but at least it has one underneath it looks fairly clean the ignition switch is down here next to the deck I'm not too sure why maybe it doesn't work or maybe they just lost the nuts but that should go just there so I'll have to find enough for it we'll put it back because I've removed the air filter box I have now revealed the spark plug so this is a great opportunity to check for spark I've got the ignition switch in the on position the sensor on the back which is for the collector box has been joined together so it thinks that the box is in place the seat switch is bypassed as well so really this should work we should have spark less spark tester in I don't think we have any Spark there is a wire just down here and that is the kill wire for the engine so if I disconnect that we can then basically figure out if it's an issue with the engine or with a sensor because now the sensors are disconnected from the engine let's check for spark again I've just put a block of wood in there to make it easier to see no spark so the issue is somewhere on the engine most likely the ignition coil I have just found a replacement nuts it's a bit Rusty but it doesn't matter there we go so I need to make sure it actually works but at least it's in position as disconnecting the Keel y from the engine made absolutely no difference at all it means that it's not an issue with the sensors so it must be an issue with the engine itself so I need to remove the top cover this will hopefully just pull through here and then there are two screws which hold the red plastic cover on okay see there are three more three more screws they are quite Rusty especially the back one which is very stubborn to remove finally there is one more bolt down here which holds the fuel tank on and that is the fuel tank removed of course there is no fuel line on here as this tank is redundant it's not being used at all now we have the top cover so this is really getting close to where we need to be we've got two bolts at the front two at the back the dipstick and the nut should pull off all right so just rotated the dipstick and hopefully that'll lift off without any issues there we go so there is the ignition coil and I can now test it to see if it works now to test it what I'm going to do is I'm going to put the multimeter onto 20K ohms and then basically we need a reading between 2.5 and 5K Okay so we've got some bare metal showing as you can see that's all we need put the positive into the end cap put the negative to here and it looks like we have a good result 4.59 so what that means that the coil itself is likely not the problem the next thing to check is the air gap between the flywheel magnets and the contacts on the coil so I can already see it actually that the gap on this side is much larger than the gap on this side so it should be ten thou I'm going to start with 12. that goes in no issue at all so maybe the air gap is wrong and maybe it's too tight on the other side let's just see what we can go up to this is 15 yep 15 goes through now for 20 double what it should be yeah that just about squeezes through so that is out of spec on this side um as I said the other side looks much tighter so I put it back to 10. okay 10 just about fits through but I can't see why that side would be causing the issue this side is out of spec so it needs to be reset so I'll just loosen the two bolts first of all that should allow me to be able to move the ignition coil just sliding backwards and then I can snug them up again then I can move the magnets into position there we go the piece of card to set the Gap can be slid in you can also use a business card slacken the bolts and it should snap into position there we go and then yeah I don't need to force it just tighten them up and the Gap is set so now we have the correct air gap on both sides so that might have been the problem as you can see it is so grimy under here and before it's all put back together this needs to be cleaned out also before I do put the top cover back on I really want to try and get the electric start to work because if we do have any issues with it with the starter motor then we're going to set the top cover off again so yeah next step is going to be to clean it then we can see if it will turn over on the key when I blow this all down with compressed air it's going to put bits everywhere so I'm just going to bung up the intake with some paper towel okay that should be sufficient just crimp that in the end I decided to replace both of them it just makes sense too and it's quite nice that ggp the manufacturer of this actually sold a separate three pin plug charger for it okay now for the new battery Pink goes on to positive it was one day red but of course it's faded and the black goes on to the negative okay let's see if it works I've got my weight on the seat the pedal the part brake is on the gear shifter is in neutral the rear bagging sensor is connected up so it thinks the bag is on and yet we have no life at all I'm going to bridge the gap on the solenoid [Music] worked well the starter motor activated it didn't engage the flywheel though it might just be dry see if we can free it up a bit quite a lot of resistance it's probably a buildup of dirt and it hasn't been used much clearly but at least it does work the starter motor does actually spin that's got it great so we know that works so it's probably the solenoid following another check of all the safety switches I discovered the one on the back which I'd already joined together was actually broken further into the machine so I've now replaced that I've drawn them all together and hopefully it'll now work well the solenoid is clicking so let's progress bird is not enough to get it to go so the sun might still be faulty or it might just want some persuasion nope that must be faulty let's get it changed foreign nice will it fire well it did fire um I don't know how well the smoke showed up on camera but it absolutely poured out for the few seconds that it ran for and the most likely reason for this is just because of the level of oil in the sump I've just pulled the dipstick out and you can see the oil in there and it's like water well it's actually more like a petrol it absolutely stinks at Petrol that is most likely the reason why it is burning oil because it is so full the oil is just going straight past the piston rings now usually on the right ammo you can actually just drain the oil through a drain plug not with this one it even says in the manual that you have to drain it by using one of these sucking tools so it will suck it out through where the dipstick is fitted onto the engine so the pipe for the oil sucker just goes straight into the sump and then start pumping and it should pump it out of there well I think that's pretty much got it it's not really possible to completely empty the sump with this method but it has got the the most at hand you can stick but I don't know how well you can see actually but uh yeah that is that is pretty full you did have some in it originally but it's a lot Fuller than it was before there we go there's a good view into the sump so you can see it's very empty there now just draining the sump and putting fresh oil in is not going to fix this problem the issue must stem from the carburettor the petrol must be leaking through into the sump so it's most likely the needle or the seat or maybe a stuck float for whatever reason petrol is continuing to get into the cylinder when the engine is not running unfortunately there really isn't good access and all this plastic body paneling in the way makes it very difficult to show you with the camera so I'm just going to remove the carburettor and then we'll get it onto the bench and it'll be a much better View foreign bolts removed that would just pull out and there we have the carburettor so I can now remove that there we go so let's take a look inside the carburetor I'm not too sure if there's gonna be any fuel in it probably unlikely since the tank is dry but this will be interesting okay not too bad it's definitely very dry it would be nice to be able to remove this gasket without damaging it but that's probably not going to happen right so the issue is likely with the needle valve for the float Slide the pin out that is the needle which looks to be in good condition so it's likely the seats which is down in there you can see the red seat in there I've put the carburetor back together again and I've put some fuel into this tank I'm going to raise the tank up above the carburettor and that will allow the fuel bowl to fill and we'll see if it overflows out of here or the other side it shouldn't do it should stop filling once it reaches the correct level and there it goes so that fuel would now be going through the intake into the engine it would tend to seep past the Rings and that's why we see it in the crankcase and now of course it is full of fuel so just drain that I'm going to change the seats if I get a kiss I can just change the needle as well just change everything you can see all the fuel is just draining out of there I did check the main jet and that looks to be clear although I will give the entire carburetor a really good clean before it's reassembled well that's it all disassembled again I've just checked and I do have a valve and a seat it's actually a kit so you get both uh it's now time to clean everything I've just cleaned the outside with some carb spray just to get that initial grime off there everything else can be done in the Ultrasonic Cleaner which I have just here and I do usually just put some washing up Liquid dish soap in here just a quick squirt and that will just assist with the grime removal I've got more water to add soon it's just heating up and then we have the jet the pin and the bowl itself there is also the float which I operated float in there you can put it literally try and trap it underneath but really they clean up pretty easily so I'm not too worried about the float itself and obviously the needle valve is going to be replaced so I don't think there's anything wrong with this it's just yeah we'll put it to one side and I want to clean everything up picking up the seats you can do that first it really doesn't matter but yeah it's just the order I'm doing in so I'm gonna get the uh top up of hot water and then we'll switch it on okay whilst the Ultrasonic Cleaner does its thing I should now be able to flip up the entire mower so I can inspect the deck there's no oil and there's no Petrol in it so nothing should leak out is extremely light okay there we go I do like to think of these as ride-on push mowers because the deck is about the same size as a really big walk behind mower but you get to ride it which makes it more fun okay so actually um well apart from the blade Beyond upside down it doesn't look terrible yes that blade is on upside down amazing foreign so as you can see because it was on the wrong way they've been mowing not very much but they have been mowing a bit on the back Edge of the blade this is The Cutting Edge here and it's never cut a single blade of grass so all that needs is to clean it doesn't need a sharpen because it is basically new Rusty but new yeah it looks like they did fit it and then the mower broke so that's a good blade [Music] foreign ER with the heat they should just dry off they should evaporate well it's all looking a lot better the bowlers come out really nicely there's the main jet floats which was floating the pin which wasn't even that dirty and the carburettor body itself but yeah that's all looking a lot cleaner so now I'm going to dry everything off with the airline and they'll pick out the seat and there we have it so yeah I've likely just done more damage to it but that doesn't matter it looks quite perished it's probably just perished so that can be replaced with a new one and hopefully that will solve the problem and now just to make sure everything is nice and clean I'm just going to spray some carb cleaner through all the passages making sure it's all as clean as possible and the same with the jet I've got the new needle and seat part number 398 188 so just drop it down into there and then with a flat punch I can just gently press it into position and there it is you can just see it in there so that is the seat installed now the rest of the carburetor can be reassembled the part number for the bowl gasket is 693-981 just making sure it isn't twisted and then we're ready to put the bowl on I think the gasket here is reusable and once this is done I can give it a test just to double check to make sure it isn't overflowing so just attach the fuel line and we shouldn't see any fuel overflowing out of it that's looking promising that's great news so I can hear just by shaking it very gently that the bowl has filled up with fuel also it is considerably heavier but yet nothing is coming out of areas where it shouldn't be all I need to do is reinstall the carburetor and of course all of the other components I have also bought a new breather tube part number 692-937 if you don't have a good breather tube like if it's all perished or cracked or even missing altogether you might find the engine doesn't run correctly and I've also got a new gasket you can't really see that in there but it is part number 692667 that's for the carburetor it's this gasket here and that fits just there on the carburetor foreign foreign so I need to take the wheel off the machine first of all then I can remove the tire from the rim and I can check for any Thorns or any of the sharp objects which have penetrated this higher there's no point putting another tube in without checking that first the nice thing about this machine it's so light you can just lift it up by hand and stick it on an axle stand the wheel is held on with an e-clip which just pops off there is a washer and then it will just slide off you can see the inner tube in there the valve stem has pulled through so I'll just put this onto the tire changer and then I can inspect the inside of this tire the tire actually looks quite good it's got lots of tread it's not perished so it just needs a clean Quick Check and a new tube this one should be pretty easy foreign with the old tube out I can now keep the time like this just partially on the rim see if there's any thorns in there and then just lift it up and feed the new tube into here just filling around on the inside see if I can film things Sharp yep there's something just there there we go a thorn just there if I can feel it soak in a tube so it would just very easily pop on YouTube making uh replacing the previous one pointless very carefully pick that out of there there we go that's the whole thing including the sharp point and I think that is everything that looks to be Thorn free so I've got on YouTube let's get that fitted so this tube type is one with a right angled valve so I need to make sure it's in the correct place and what I do is put a fuel line clamp on it so it can't pull through whilst the tire is being mounted and I might be able to get away with not using any time mounting Compound on here because it is such a tiny wheel just got to be careful not to nip the inner tube [Music] and there we have it just give that a very quick smear of Grease foreign and the e-clip and that's the wheel fixed [Music] well that engine is looking quite good as the engine has warmed up it's burnt off that oil from when it was overfilled and it has cleared and I think we're now ready to cut some grass well almost I think first it'd be quite nice just to make a very simple deflector because currently this shoot is just going to fire grass up into the air it only needs to be really simple just to keep the grass down a bit so I've got some pieces of scrap metal just down here as you can see I think if I can just make something really basic out of these off Cuts that'll be good I think something like this Rod here would be perfect for holding onto the machine and then like the Box section will be good for holding it away from the chute and then of course the sheet metal is the main plate which the grass will hit and then hopefully that will allow it to distribute a bit it won't just Clump up and stay in a great big pile foreign [Music] foreign foreign the lower box section sort of support and ballast bar on I just wanted to show you what it was going to look like roughly the reason why I call it a ballast bar is because obviously when the deck is engaged it's going to produce a lot of wind and it will just blow that flap fully open rendering it completely pointless so yeah having the extra weight without actually bolting it down should help hopefully so she needs to basically weld the flap onto there and just remind everybody this is just for the test really this is uh it probably would work you probably could mow like this long term but yeah it's just so that we're not throwing rocks and everything everywhere because the area which I test these modes on is not exactly a lawn it is just a piece of rough ground I know we have it a nice quick deflector it should do its job uh it might not be pretty but as long as it works that's all that matters and because we've got this curve on the top here that should prevent the grass from coming back up and hitting me some of these actually that you can buy do have sides to them but all that's going to really do is add like a combine harvester and it's going to create a swath so yeah we'll have to see how that goes we'll have to see what sort of finish it leaves although yes it will only be mowing weeds not really grass as such but yeah it'll be interesting I should think it'll all come firing out the sides as much as it does underneath but yeah nice fun test [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Applause] and there we have it it runs drives and mows and actually I think it's left a really good finish my deflector also seemed to work very well it didn't get blocked and it did deflect it nicely it didn't come firing back at me I can't really see any reason why that wouldn't work for longer term mowing I suppose having thicker steel here would be beneficial but yeah otherwise it seems to be great and having no size didn't seem to affect anything either and it was nice that it didn't all come firing back up onto me or collecting around whether the fuel filler cap is because that would not be very good I really hope you've enjoyed this video I'll be putting more out really soon please also remember to like the video it's always very much appreciated and until the next one see you again soon

Channel: Machinery Restorer

Views: 55,161

Keywords: restoration, tool restoration, hand tool restoration, mechanics, mechanic restoration, hand tool, mechanical, machinery restorer, hand tools, mower restoration, rare restoration, engine rebuild, tractor restoration

Id: zOTl7EeeSqo

Length: 45min 28sec (2728 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023