Home repair methods

I did a repair well the other day, was quite chuffed. Learnt from a previous repair a good approach.

Wanted to mow the lawns, the pull cord broke, the other end disappeared back into the lawnmower.
BEFORE I tried anything got my phone and had a look at a few utubes on how to replace the pull cord on a Briggs and Stratton .
The first video was not promising ' .. drill out these 4 pop rivets .......'
The next one was a winner ' undo these 3 bolts and lift off the whole cover........' Much better.

As a sneaky engineers move. I had to remove the throttle cable and put it back on exactly where it came off.
Before I undid the throttle cable clamps I painted the clamps, that area of the cable and that area of the panel with white fingernail polish.
When I reassembled it all I had to just match up the white fingernail polish marks.
It make a huge difference.

Result was, I got the lawns mowed that morning

Found another few good repairs
The headlights on our old cars was getting that yellow dull look to them.
Due to UV exposure, I dislike this look.
Used some cutting compound on a dry rag. It worked very well, rinsed it off with a very wet rag.
Both our old cars have quite clear headlights and much whiter lighting now.

Sprintcyclist wrote:I did a repair well the other day, was quite chuffed. Learnt from a previous repair a good approach.

Wanted to mow the lawns,  the pull cord broke, the other end disappeared back into the lawnmower.
BEFORE I tried anything got my phone and had a look at a few utubes on how to replace the pull cord on a Briggs and Stratton .
The first video was not promising ' .. drill out these 4 pop rivets .......'
The next one was a winner  ' undo these 3 bolts  and lift off the whole cover........' Much better.

As a sneaky engineers move. I had to remove the throttle cable and put it back on exactly where it came off.
Before I undid the throttle cable clamps I painted the clamps, that area of the cable and that area of the panel with white fingernail polish.
When I reassembled it all I had to just match up the white fingernail polish marks.
It make a huge difference.

Result was, I got the lawns mowed that morning

I don't know how they design lawn mowers down your way. But we've had the Consumer Product Safety Commission meddling with them for 45 years, with blade cut-outs, brakes when a bail is released, throttle cables lengthened to satisfy dweebs in government.

It's really no wonder riding mowers are almost universal, since they scarcely cost more than the idiot-proofed push mowers.

BUT...back before that, I remember my golf course years. Jacobsen, a small maker of industrial turf-care equipment (later purchased by Toro) used to make a commercial rotary mower, intended for golf courses and parks departments. A two-stroke engine of their own making. The mower deck was cast, thick aluminum - light to pick up and heave into a truck. Throttle was right on the engine block - a plastic lever that turned, didn't slide. No cable - the actuator went right to the carb.

Two-stroke, meant never changing the oil. Those were cheap enough that if a park got two seasons out of one, it was good enough. We had about six of them, and never threw them out - if one failed, which wasn't often since we knew to add oil to the gas...if one failed, we'd just cannibalize another for parts.

No Eww Toob videos required. You could strip the thing down from operable to head removed in about ten minutes. Only moving parts were the crank and piston. Recoil starter was super-simple, and if one broke, and you needed that mower to run (no starter housing/cowl to take off another) you could just wind a length of rope or cord around the top pulley and yank. It would run hot, without the shroud, but it would run.