Lawn Mower troubles question????

[Gunther274]

I started up the lawn mower today and I go, "maybe I should stop at the garage quick and sharpen the blade"... Ok so did that quick, then fired it back up. I went over to the grass and made it about 50 feet and it started to run really rough and sorta loud, so I think right away P/C is fried. Well I pulled it all apart, P/C is clean as a whistle. I noticed that the bolt holding the blade was loose. I dont know how that happened but that made me think, did the blade flop and break the flywheel key? The crankshaft must be fine because the piston slides up and down nicely like it should. SO!, where am I at this point????

What might happen if a bearing goes out in the lower bowels of the engine??

Oh and this is a Toro GTS5 with a briggs 5.5 in it, about 15 years old, no problems thus far. This is at my parents house, and I killed the mower, so I need some answers to explain to pa.....

 

[CGC4200]

Loose blade would be noisy

Can you tighten it up?, maybe it didn't cause the flywheel
key to shear, they are not expensive, but hard to install without
proper tools.

 

[Fish]

Put it back together and tighten the blade bolt and don't say anything.

 

[Gunther274]

ok well im going to try that for now. I did not think that would cause so much trouble...

 

[Fish]

On pushmowers, the blade also acts as the flywheel, so if the blade is loose or off, it causes all kinds of troubles.

 

[kevlar]

I hope you are not one of these guys that wants to sharpen the blade,so they flip the mower over,work on the blade and then can't figure out why the mower won't work?

 

[CGC4200]

seen on This Old House recently

They were were showing proper technique for sharpening
pushmower blades. They lifted up the front of mower instead of
back and used 2" x 4" blocks to stop blade from moving,
It took two well paid grown men to demonstrate sharpening
1 lawnmower blade, but I bet they got it tight or the assistants did.

 

[ZeroJunk]

I turn mine over all the time to take the blades off. But, they are LawnBoy two cycles.

Neighbor was going to give me his locked up power washer with a nice Honda motor on it. Not sure how or how long it took , but he had so much oil in the cylinder it wouldn't turn over.

 

[bigredd]

Most common problem with lawn mowers are carb issues. May want to take the carb off and give it a good cleaning and check that the float does not have fluid in it. If you took the engine apart, also need to reset the governor.

 

[CGC4200]

MowerGate

just say: Dad, we need a riding lawnmower, no need for unneeded details
about how it happened, mowers don't last forever.

 

[Gunther274]

I am not a dummy, I just took the blade off to sharpen it, and put it back on. I Started back on the mowing, and it was raising heck in about 50 feet. It sounded like the whole thing was going to crap the bed. I thought for sure I had fried the engine. Well turns out the blade definitely acts as a weight to carry the engine through its cycles. My slightly loose blade must have thrown off the timing for a little while til I tightened it up. The good thing is I had the cylinder head off and was able to clean the carbon out and kind of clean up the whole thing.

Long story short, I made a mistake that gave me an excuse to clean up the mower, and in the end I got the lawn mowed.

 

[Fish]

I am not a dummy, I just took the blade off to sharpen it, and put it back on. I Started back on the mowing, and it was raising heck in about 50 feet. It sounded like the whole thing was going to crap the bed. I thought for sure I had fried the engine. Well turns out the blade definitely acts as a weight to carry the engine through its cycles. My slightly loose blade must have thrown off the timing for a little while til I tightened it up. The good thing is I had the cylinder head off and was able to clean the carbon out and kind of clean up the whole thing.

Long story short, I made a mistake that gave me an excuse to clean up the mower, and in the end I got the lawn mowed.

It could be much worse.....


You could be married.....................

 

[kevlar]

I am not a dummy, I just took the blade off to sharpen it, and put it back on. I Started back on the mowing, and it was raising heck in about 50 feet. It sounded like the whole thing was going to crap the bed. I thought for sure I had fried the engine. Well turns out the blade definitely acts as a weight to carry the engine through its cycles. My slightly loose blade must have thrown off the timing for a little while til I tightened it up. The good thing is I had the cylinder head off and was able to clean the carbon out and kind of clean up the whole thing.

Long story short, I made a mistake that gave me an excuse to clean up the mower, and in the end I got the lawn mowed.

I didn't mean that you were, just something I had seen in the past. Glad you got it figured out.

 

[Fish]

He was calling me a dummy.....

I don't have a "DR." in my username...........

Dr. Fish?????

DR. Fish, Medicine Woman........????

 

[RVALUE]

I hope you are not one of these guys that wants to sharpen the blade,so they flip the mower over,work on the blade and then can't figure out why the mower won't work?

Silly, everyone knows to turn it back over before starting....

 

[CGC4200]

lesson learned, taken your time & tighten fasteners

Every time I have rushed through a project & left something semi-tight,
It took a lot more time & expense to fix. Do it right the first time, then
move on to next problem.

 

[lawnmowertech37]

I hope you are not one of these guys that wants to sharpen the blade,so they flip the mower over,work on the blade and then can't figure out why the mower won't work?

Add to your comment cause they get oil in the air filter and oil in the carb chamber therefore it causes it not to get the proper fuel to start the mower