Small Engine Repair - Basic Tools

how's it going eliminators today we're going to be looking at some tools that you would need if you're getting into the small engine repair business today's video is specifically going to cover entry-level beginners tools and then I'll eventually follow up with an expert level tools video in the near future with that being said let's get right into it so to start things off you're gonna want to get yourself a multi-piece socket set I've had this socket set for over 15 years now it's made by Mastercraft and they offer a lifetime warranty so whenever I break a tool I simply take it into the auto desk at Canadian Tire and they replace it for a brand new one no questions asked so having a socket set similar to this is nice because it's gonna be a great beginners entry-level set and it's going to have enough sockets that includes both metric and imperial sockets to get you started and in the top section it also has a whole bunch of deep sockets and they also include some allen tools in here as well as like a pair of pliers and just some various stuff you will also have two spark plug sockets that are most common so they'll have a thirteen sixteenths as well as a 5/8 and you can generally find something like this on sale for maybe about 50 percent off near Christmas time so like I said I've had this for over 15 years and I still have it I use it every day now while you're using that socket set to remove bolts from your snowblower lawnmower whatever small engine you're working on you might run into a few that are rusted up and seized and you might need some penetrating oil to help loosen things up a bit so I would highly recommend always having a can of some form of penetrating oil nearby just in case you need it and for nuts or bolts that you can't get out using a socket set because maybe there's a clearance issue you're gonna want to get yourself a couple packs of open end wrenches so these wrenches have an open end on one side and a closed box end on the other you guys can see that this kit here in red is an SAE version and the blue kit is a metric version so living in Canada I do see a lot of metric however I also see a lot of imperial bolts because a lot of this equipment is imported from the United States so depending on where you live that you may not need both but I would highly recommend having both just so that you don't go without and for all those nuts and bolts that are going to be a little more difficult to remove I would highly recommend having a vise you don't necessarily need a big vise even a small vise will allow you to clamp whatever you're working on to let's say something like a workbench so that'll be quite secure so that you can go ahead put a wrench on it and loosen off the nut or the bolt whatever it is you're working on if you're working on something like a carburetor though that's made from you're not going to want to clamp that into a steel vise so having a couple pieces of wood will prevent the steel jaws on your vise from damaging your aluminum carburetor and what we have here is just a piece of wood with a couple holes drilled into the back with a couple magnets glued in them so that they stay stuck on just like that and go ahead and drop my carbon tighten it up and remove the bolt that's giving me a problem and similar to the multi piece socket set you're gonna need some screwdrivers at the bare minimum you're gonna need your basics which are going to be a large and small slotted screwdriver which is commonly referred to as a flathead and you're also going to need a set of Philips screwdrivers so this is a number three here and I believe that is a number two down there this is pretty much your basics you're going to notice that all four of these screwdrivers are a different color probably made by a different brand and that's because I've just picked them up over the years but a tool is a tool and as long as they can do their job then I'm gonna keep them around the shop getting slightly more advanced would be a set of Torx screw drivers here on a lot of these newer lawnmowers and snow blowers they're starting to use metric and I've also been noticing that they're starting to use Torx bits a lot more frequently so you're gonna need something to remove those if you have a piece of equipment that uses those screws going back to the multi piece socket set if you get one that's decent it should include Torx bits that you would see on generally any small engine out there so you may not have to go out and buy a separate pack of Torx bit screwdrivers when they're going to be included in your set now when you're working on small engines you're gonna be removing nuts and bolts off the machine and you're not gonna want to lose them to keep things organized you're gonna want to have something to put those nuts and bolts in when I started out I just use an old Tupperware container you throw your nuts and bolts in there and it keeps everything slightly organized and less chaotic when it comes time to reassemble everything next up on the list is going to be a can of carburetor cleaner this is what I used when I started out my small engine repair career and while this stuff might not work to get every little piece of dirt and debris out of a carburetor it works well enough to clean a carburetor to the point where you can get it running again and you could buy this stuff both in aerosol cans like this or in a non aerosol container version where it's just the liquid so you can probably clean two or three carburetors with this can hear this stuff retails for about $6.99 a can so you're gonna have to factor the price of carb cleaner into the price of your repairs now that we've talked Tabo carb cleaner you're probably going to want to have a large glass jar similar to this with an opening large enough that you can put a lawnmower carburetor through it the reason why you're gonna want a glass jar like this is so that you can put some of that liquid carb cleaner into the jar and then you're gonna put a carburetor in here and let it soak some times carburetors are gonna be so gummed up that you're not just gonna be able to spray it with carb cleaner to get it clean sometimes you're gonna have to soak them overnight to really help break down the gunk that's been built up inside of them and let's say you do have a clogged up main jet on your carburetor sometimes carb cleaner isn't going to be enough to clean up that main jet so I would recommend having a set of oxy-acetylene tip cleaners these come in different sizes you guys can see that they do have ridges on them so you're gonna have to be careful that you don't end up boring out the main jet and increasing the fuel that is supplied to your engine however these do come in handy you select the size that's going to fit your main jet push out any gunk that might be in there and I can show you guys what that looks like so on the left you're gonna see a main jet that's completely clogged in the center you can see here that I've used the oxy-acetylene tip cleaner to push out the debris and then in the right picture you can see that the main jet is now free and clear of debris however it still has a little bit of gunk built up around it so I would further clean that but the main debris has been pushed out and I simply did that using some oxy-acetylene tip cleaners and when you're working on small engines you're gonna have to be able to test to see whether or not they have spark because sometimes it might not be a carburetor issue so you get yourself one of these this is a light up spark tester you plug this end into your high tension lead or your spark plug cap and you plug this end onto your spark plug go ahead and give your engine a pull and there will be a light inside of here that will light up and it will tell you if you have spark if you don't have spark then you have a coil issue or possibly a safety switch issue if you do have spark but the engine still doesn't start then you may have a carburetor issue or you may just have low compression and while talking about low compression you're also gonna want to get yourself a cheap a little compression tester this is pretty much your average basic low end compression tester you're going to have a gauge up top that's going to have psi markings on them and you're going to have a little relief valve here it's going to have a rubber tube that goes down to a fitting and this fitting is generally going to have the same threads as your average sparkplug what you're gonna do is thread that in to where your spark plug goes pull your engine over and the compression should build and what you're gonna want to see is something around 120 or higher to let you know that you have decent compression in your cylinder and that means that your piston rings and your valves are sealed up now this is your average spark plug thread but sometimes you're going to have a different sized spark plug maybe it's in a chainsaw or a leaf blower instead of having the larger threads like this so what you might want to do is go ahead and spend a little bit more money on a compression tester kit you'll see that we still have the gauge and the tube but you're also going to notice that they give you adapters in this kit to allow you to thread this compression tester into different engines that may have smaller or larger spark plug threads so if you have spark and you have compression then chances are you can spray some carb cleaner into the engine it should fire up and then shut off and that generally means that you just have a clogged main jet on the carburetor you don't necessarily need to have a compression tester when you're just starting out in the business but it's nice to have one especially if it's one like this that's relatively inexpensive and if you're checking for spark or compression and have the spark plug you're also going to want to check the gap of the spark plug electrode so having a spark plug gap tool such as this will allow you to set the spark plug gap from let's say twenty thousandths of an inch to 30 thousandths of an inch but the opener is going to be beneficial to allow you to open up the gap of a spark plug and you'll be able to set it to approximately 30 thousandths of an inch which is normally where most spark plugs are set and while we're on the subject of spark plugs if you're just getting into the business you're probably not going to be replacing them all the time unless they're really bad so having a stiff bristle brush similar to this will allow you to go and just remove that gunk from the electrode of the spark plug so that you can pop it back in once you have set your gap and see if you can get your engine to run now if you're gonna be working on lawn mowers you're gonna have to make carburetor adjustments from time to time you're also gonna need a place to work so when I started out I just had a nice open area that I cleaned up outside and I used a old patio chair pad so that I could kneel down next to the lawn mower and make adjustments to the carb wherever I needed to and a setup like this is going to be as beginner as it gets guys so let's say you've just reinstalled your clean carburetor onto a lawn mower you fire it up it fires up and it runs but it runs a little rough so you need to make a carburetor adjustment but you can do that while you're holding the control so you get one of these it's a simple quick clamp you can go ahead and clamp that on to the handle on the back of the lawnmower that allows you to go down to the carburetor and make adjustments as you need it's a simple tool inexpensive definitely a tool that I use all the time next up you're probably going to want to set yourself up with either an eBay or an Amazon account if you're working on small engines you're most likely going to have to buy replacement parts such as gaskets fuel filters primer bulbs or fuel line or if the carburetor that you're working on is just too gummed up and you can't clean it using carb cleaner you may have to end up just replacing the carb entirely and eBay and Amazon are both great places that will give you access at these parts for relatively low cost now one of the parts of servicing a lawnmower is going to be changing the oil and I'm gonna assume that if you're just getting into the business you're not gonna want to spend a lot of money on high quality oil you're probably just gonna buy whatever comes on sale and as you guys can see this is just your basic standard lawnmower oil it is an SAE 30 weight oil and on the topic of changing your oil you're going to need to put that used oil into something when I started out I ended up just using tins that cookies came in they're sealed on the bottom so that you can drain some hot used oil into them now if you run out of cookie tins then you can upgrade yourself to one of these plastic oil pans here you guys can see that they give you a little area here to drain let's say oil filters if you're changing oil filters on a riding lawnmower or you can take a big funnel and put it into that little corner section there and drain olive oil to help get into a little tighter area these are bigger but they also hold a lot more oil than your average cookie tin so having something like this is going to be beneficial because you can't put fresh oil in unless you have the old oil oh and while we're on the topic of servicing lawnmowers you may end up wanting to sharpen the blade so you're gonna need a cheap grinder this is one of the least expensive angle grinders out there I believe it cost me about $40 we have attached to this egg grinder what's known as a flat disc it's basically just a bunch of sandpaper stacked together on a wheel and you can go ahead and put a decent-enough edge on pretty much any blade but you have to remember that as you remove material from both ends of a lawnmower blade things can start to get unbalanced as one end is going to weigh more than the other so you're going to want to pick yourself up just a little pedestal blade balancer so you're gonna have a top just like this and it has a bunch of different size tops to it so that you can fit into different size holes on lawn mower blades it has a sharp point here you put the top on and like I said it's just a pedestal mount so you're gonna go ahead drop your blade onto there and then you're gonna see if the blade is balanced and we can see here that this side is down which means that this end of the lawnmower blade has a little bit more weight on it so we would go ahead and resharpen that side to remove a little bit of that material and then it should bring the lawn mower blade closer to level and a lot of times in order to get these lawn mower blades off you're going to need something like this just a cheap impact gun this model is a power belt hot rod I ended up getting this and a couple other pneumatic tools with a hot rod air compressor that I bought the compressor pump ran all the time because the tanks were quite small but having something like this with a couple impact sockets will allow you to go ahead and remove a blade or a stuck bolt that might be really seized in if your penetrating oil doesn't do the trick now in order to run pneumatic air tools you're going to need a compressor but if you're just getting into the business you may not want to go out and buy a large air compressor so I would recommend a small air compressor or something similar to this this is a portable air tank so at the very least you could take something like this to a friend's house that has an air compressor you could fill this up take it back home and then use the air stored in your tank to run your pneumatic air tools now if you're working on riding lawn mowers and let's say you have to change a drive belt you're gonna have to have access at the underside of the machine so having something like a hydraulic jack will allow you to raise up the rear of the machine and with a hydraulic jack I would also highly recommend a cheap set of axle stands you can set these two up under the axle as I would never recommend working under something with all of its weight on a hydraulic jack now if you're working on riding lawn mowers you might run into one that has a dead battery so you're gonna want to get yourself a cheap little 12-volt jumper pack I bought this on Amazon I believe it was like $29.99 it has a fused positive cable leading to a set of decently sized alligator clamps on the REDD+ and it also has a black negative you can hook that up to your battery turn your engine over and if you can get it going then at least using a cheap 12-volt jumper pack gets you going now if you've used your jumper pack just start up your engine and you find out that it was just a case of a dead battery you're going to want to have something that allows you to charge the battery and something like this moto Master 6 or 12 volt battery charger will allow you to charge the battery overnight so that the next morning you go ahead and start the ride lawnmower and it'll turn over just fine and on the topic of electronics you're gonna want to pick yourself up a cheap inexpensive multimeter this will allow you to let's say diagnose a dead battery by testing voltage or it'll allow you to diagnose a bad safety switch by testing resistance or continuity electronics can be a little bit more confusing and can be more on the advanced side of small engine repair but as we move into the future we're getting farther away from the old school where it just has a coil and a spark plug to now you're having safety switches and all of these electrical bypasses seat switches reverse cutoff switches things of that nature that you're gonna need a multimeter to test now we're gonna get a little more advanced here but we're still going to focus on beginner entry level tools if you're doing any kind of valve adjustments or let's say you have to replace the head gasket on a machine and you have to remove the cylinder head to replace the head gasket you're gonna have to reset your valves and to be able to do that you're going to need valve spring compressors or a set of feeler gauges now feeler gauges have all different thicknesses of gauges here and you're basically going to put them in and this is what's called trimming your valves you're gonna set your valve clearance to a certain spec so that your valves open and close at the proper time and if you ever have to remove your valve springs you're gonna need a set of valve spring removers and these here are pretty much the least expensive of all of the different varieties of valve spring compressors you simply put these Forks into the valve spring you go ahead and tighten that handle right there and these Forks here will close and depress the spring allowing you to remove the retainer and then you can open this back up again take the valve spring cap off take the valve spring off and then drop your valve so here's your basic intake valve this was dropped out of a machine it has a slight little bend to it now if the valve stem itself is bent then there's no fixing that but if you have a bad seat and let's say you just have a leaky valve I can show you what I used to clean up the valves to help make it seal a little better so as your engine runs the valves are opening and closing and this little area right here is going to get worn down sooner or later your valves are going to start to leak so we use valve lapping grease this stuff here is made by Permatex and it's valve grinding compound it's essentially just a rough paste that you're going to put on to the seat of the valve you're gonna drop the valve back into your engine and then you're going to twist the valve and it will help clean up that little seat there and hopefully you can seal up a set of valves just by doing what's known as lapping a valve now you're not going to be twisting that valve by hand because it's going to be inside of the cylinder head so you're going to want to get yourself one of these this is a valve a lapping suction cup and it has a wooden handle on it which will allow you to go ahead and spin that valve inside of the cylinder head to allow the lapping compound to grind down the valve seat there and help clean up that surface I'd also recommend having a couple extra jerry cans laying around your garage even though you're just getting into the business you may not want to replace your customers fuel especially if they said they just filled up their lawnmower but what you'll find is a lot of times customers leave their lawnmower sitting over the winter months with let's say a quarter or half a tank of fuel they go to start up their lawnmower in the spring it doesn't fire up so they go and put another half tank of fresh fuel in so now you don't have half a tank of fresh fuel you have a full tank of bad fuel that has been diluted by old fuel that's been broken down and doesn't contain any octane so instead of having something like 87 octane you may only have 50 or 65 octane and it may not be enough to start up that machine so I always recommend draining out the old fuel even if the customer says they just filled it up and then go ahead and replace it with some fresh fuel jerry cans are relatively inexpensive and you can probably find some used ones online whether it be Craigslist or Facebook marketplace doesn't matter if they're newer used as long as they don't leak then they accomplish their task which is just a hold fuel and in order to run a two-stroke you're going to have to be mixing two-stroke gas so you're going to be needing some two-stroke oil you guys can see here that I have some castro super two-stroke motor oil so you're gonna be mixing this into your gas because two strokes don't use bottom-end oil they use oil mixed directly into the field now I mix all my two-stroke fuel to 50 to one but you're gonna want to get your fuel set to the proper mixture so you're gonna need some kind of graduated measuring cup that you can go in and measure the amount of fuel to the amount of oil I also have a little funnel here that I use as well and that just allows me to have the proper mixed fuel so I can then rule the fuel out as a possible issue and I can go ahead and adjust the carburetor using my carburetor adjustment tool now speaking of chainsaws while we're on the topic of two strokes to adjust those carburetors a lot of times you're going to require a specialty tool and I would highly recommend having at the bare minimum what's known as a splined carburetor adjustment tool having one of these is going to allow you to adjust the high and low speed jet on your carburetor well eliminators that's going to wrap up today's beginner's guide to entry-level small engine repair tools like I said earlier in the video I will be following this up with an advanced guide to expert level tools in the near future but for today's video I just tried to focus on the cheapest possible tools that you would need to get into the small engine repair business now chances are you might have some of the tools that listed in this video for instance a multi-piece socket set I had that before I even got started in small engine repair it was just something nice to have around the shop and if we looked at the cost of all of the tools shown here it is quite substantial but if you're just getting into the business you'll probably buy your tools on a job to job basis so for instance something like a valve spring compressor you may not purchase until you have to replace a valve on a riding lawnmower with that being said if you enjoyed the video think about leaving me a thumbs up you know it really helps me you can click here to subscribe and click over here to watch one of my previous videos I upload every single week so be sure to stop on by next week check channel up for new content and as always guys thanks for watching [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Eliminator Performance

Views: 49,578

Keywords: Small engine repair, beginners tools, entry level tools, basic tools, small engine repair tools, Eliminator Performance

Id: Z-KQsXFFvoo

Length: 19min 35sec (1175 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 08 2020