Small Engine Stupitity !!!!!!!!!!!

[Airecon]

This may be a little off topic but it deals with saws and other small engines. Let's hear some of your "small engine stupidity", here's a few of mine in order of importance.

1a. Back in 1970 when I was 10 my parents bought me a nice used Honda Mini Trail 50. We sold it about 7 years later for $10.00 at a garage sale-restoreable shape.

1b. (Just as important to me as 1a) In 1973 got a new Honda SL70. Sold it about 10 years later for $20.00- restoreable shape.

1c. ( not as valuable as 1a or 1b, but) During the mid 70's my dad had a Stihl 015. I used it a lot to clear dirtbike trails. About 10 years ago I was going to get it running, but trashed it and bought a cheapo Homelite-decent shape.

2. During the mid 70's my dad built me a go kart. We went to a smallengine shop and got an old saw. We must not had it geared right because it wouldn't pull the kart. Few years later I trashed it all. I think it was a yellow saw engine- probably a Mac or Power Products. Sure hope it wasn't a West Bend.

3. Back in the late 70's I bought some type of Kawasaki Green Streak for $5.00. My sister drove me and my mother 25 mile to a dealer to get parts -they offered me $75.00 for it. My sister said sell it-that made me want it more. Couple years later I trashed it all. Then a year or two later here came a dude with another Green Streak for $20.00. If I had it all tday I could build a neat old bike.

You guys have any "Small Engine Stupidity" over the years???

 

[mattinky]

I'm almost ashamed to admit this, but.......Back in the 80s I worked at a motorcycle dealership and they used to give me all the junk bikes that came through. I had so many non-running Honda 50s & 70s (approx. 30), old RM Suzukis, a couple of Pentons, etc.. that they were getting in my way so I loaded them all up in the pickup and took them to the landfill - 2 truck loads. at the time you could'nt give them away. A couple years later the vintage bike craze hit and they would be worth a small fortune now. Live & learn


Matt

 

[16:1mix]

Looking back, I would not have attempted to overhaul that Tecumseh engine on my Rupp minibike....a project that was never finished and sold off decades later.

 

[Stihl #1]

I remember a little brown Remington saw that I bought from Wards. Good little saw, and I actually rented it out when I had my lawnmower shop in OK back in the '80s. Sold it for next to nothing when I closed up the shop.
But, I still have the Toro Whirlwind 21" self propelled mower my grandmother bought me when I was in the 8th grade. It has a Tec LAV35 engine on it. Originally had the oil fill gizmo on the side that you just pushed the button to add oil with, but I did away with it and put on a dipstick. I mower our yard, her yard, took it to college and mowed the rental with it, did a complete restoration with a new short block, wheels, and paint job when I had the shop. It is in the shed now, but I haven't run it in years. Another winter project.

 

[newguy18]

Alright I'll bite I had several antique stihls the only one I can remember the model number was the s 10 I traded for a husqvarna 51 because I couldn't find a link for the throtle any where.A week after trading I found the link for sale on curt bailey's ebay store,because I'm good friends with the man I did the trade with I gave him a call and told him where to get the link since he was looking to restore the saw.I go by his shop every now and again and I gotta say that saw looks good all spruced up.The rest met a dumpster.

 

[XJWoody]

My first real (beyond bicycles) project was a head gasket on a Honda XR75 engine... my part ended badly, but the shop bailed me out.

Then at 14 or so, took home a '69 SkiDoo 335cc locked up. A shot of Mystery Oil overnight, removed the head and gave some tough love with a wooden drift & it got free. A little 220 grit massage for the cylinder, fresh gas and it fired up! I had a bad time cleaning the carb IIRC...crazy multi-layer walbro or tillotsen IIRC. Another trip to the shop :censored:

Lets just say my first hours weren't my finest... and my next one might not be much better. :monkey:

 

[redprospector]

I've got lot's of botched job's I could tell about when I was a kid, but I'll tell about my most recent one.
Remember when you could hook up a Briggs electric start engine with any old key switch? Well don't try it now. I bought a Briggs 35 hp for my little firewood processor, put it on and hooked it up with an old key switch I had laying around. It ran like crap, I'm at about 8700' elevation so I thought maybe new jets would help. Waited a month for the jet's, and put em in. It ran worse. I gave up and took it to the shop, they said I used the wrong switch and burned up a bunch of diode's but I was lucky and didn't burn up the coil.
New diode's, switch, and labor = $187.92
Having an 18 hp chomper with a 35 hp engine = priceless.

Andy

 

[Bowtie]

I only owned one Poulan in my life. It was a Poulan 3000 chainsaw, bought on my cousins auction to help him out with his premmie twin babies. Took it home, replaced the usual lac of maintenence stuff. It was a great saw! friend of mine got hard up for a saw, so traded it to him for a 4 bolt main chevy 350 that needed rebuilt. He trashed it. Im still so mad about that because that saw was a good machine, especially after the muffler mod and new B/C. Oh well, I may be able to trade him back. Im not a poulan fan per se, but that was a damn good chainsaw. I should have sold it to scottr when I had it. At least he would have done it justice. Sorry Scott.

 

[bama]

I put a brand new coil on my 8 hp briggs(woodsplitter) three years ago. It was electric start. THe motor came from a TORO Model #7 mower. I hooked up the electric start and somehow connected the coil kill wire to it. Wrecked the coil. Off to the shop for another one....

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I once owned....

A Chrysler Sno Rabbit!


http://sno-runner.com/BuyaSnorunner.html

http://www.sno-runner.com/Historyandpictures.html


When I bought this I thought I had the only one in the world, people freaked out when they saw it and offered to PAY to ride it, it was a blast!


I got it for around $200 and it was in mint condition, I put fuel in it and off we went. I must have logged about 100 miles on it over the course of 2 years and put it up due to it needing some simple maintainence that wasnt so simple due to lack of parts, this was the pre internet era.



One day someone offered me $100 for it and I bit, DUMMY.....



I also had an "67" OSSA Trials bike, it hurts to even think about that due to it having every aftermarket "Nesessity" made and was also in mint condition.


Oh well.

.

 

[testlight]

Hondra trail 90, and an S&R outboard motor. Ruined them both taking them apart when nothing was really wrong with them.

 

[stihl sawing]

About ten years ago i had a whiz chainsaw made by root[I think]and it was like new condition. my father in law said he would take it and sell it for me. I said ok as i needed some money. Well i haven't seen no money, He sold it to someone and about a year after that he got really sick. So i just dropped the whole thing. I wasn't mad about it anyway. Just wish i had the saw back it was a cream puff.

 

[Buckethead]

Hondra trail 90, and an S&R outboard motor. Ruined them both taking them apart when nothing was really wrong with them.

I still have my Honda Trail 90 (1965 model CT200) but have no idea where the key went...and 3rd gear needs work.

 

[andrethegiant70]

I had a BSA 650 Lightning and a Suzuki Titan (three-cylinder, two-stroke fire breather).. sold 'em for chump change. At least I got good money for the CB900.

 

[AngelofDarkness]

Trading in my old SXL-AO to a saw shop when I was 15 and bought my Husky 55, the guy told me it wasn't worth fixing and gave me a $10 credit for it off my new saw, I should have been smart enough to have kept it and tinkered with it.

About the same time I saved money mowing lawns with an old Simplicity lawn tractor that belched black smoke, so I went out and bought a used Cub Cadet 1200 with a snow blower. I thought the Simplicity was junk and sold it for $50 even though it still ran (had electrical problems that were over my head at the time) Doh!

A few years later, after I had left for college and was gone a few months my mother decided to sell my Cub Cadet because she thought it was "old and rusty" and that I had "Junk" laying around, she sold it for $100, I was so pissed!

But then a few months later I come home to find a brand new Toro 268 Hydro in the garage, she said she was sick of paying to mow the lawn.

 

[Brimmstone]

A Chrysler Sno Rabbit!


http://sno-runner.com/BuyaSnorunner.html

http://www.sno-runner.com/Historyandpictures.html


When I bought this I thought I had the only one in the world, people freaked out when they saw it and offered to PAY to ride it, it was a blast!


I got it for around $200 and it was in mint condition, I put fuel in it and off we went. I must have logged about 100 miles on it over the course of 2 years and put it up due to it needing some simple maintainence that wasnt so simple due to lack of parts, this was the pre internet era.



One day someone offered me $100 for it and I bit, DUMMY.....



I also had an "67" OSSA Trials bike, it hurts to even think about that due to it having every aftermarket "Nesessity" made and was also in mint condition.


Oh well.

.

I had three of those at one time and sold them for about 200 bucks to pay a bill. The guy still has them and will not get rid of them. The one I kick myself the most over was the Honda 750 four cylinder that was the first year with the sand cast engine. I sold the bike for pennies compared to what it was worth. I just saw go for over 20 grand in an auction a few years ago that wasn't as nice.

 

[RED-85-Z51]

Trading in my old SXL-AO to a saw shop when I was 15 and bought my Husky 55, the guy told me it wasn't worth fixing and gave me a $10 credit for it off my new saw, I should have been smart enough to have kept it and tinkered with it.

About the same time I saved money mowing lawns with an old Simplicity lawn tractor that belched black smoke, so I went out and bought a used Cub Cadet 1200 with a snow blower. I thought the Simplicity was junk and sold it for $50 even though it still ran (had electrical problems that were over my head at the time) Doh!

A few years later, after I had left for college and was gone a few months my mother decided to sell my Cub Cadet because she thought it was "old and rusty" and that I had "Junk" laying around, she sold it for $100, I was so pissed!

But then a few months later I come home to find a brand new Toro 268 Hydro in the garage, she said she was sick of paying to mow the lawn.

Ive got a Cub Cadet 1200, Decent tractor, terrible God Aweful clutch setup, but a good tractor. Cant seem to keep a belt on it over a month, getting expensive now.

Paid 100 for it too...lol

----
As for Doing stupid stuff...

I parked my Invader Race Kart in my shed over the Winter, and heck, half the spring. I had changed the oil prior to putting it up, so when I pulled it out a few months back I wasnt worried about the oil level at all...

I added gas, and it popped off, the Kohler XKE ran like a champ as always. I noted it was hesitant to idle at first..I made a couple warm up runs then pushed it 1 time to wide open, it refused to rev upo though, acted like it was out of power.

I pulled back in front of the shop and noted an engine noise. I killed it and checked the oil...off the stick on a 15* mount...CRAP

So I topped off the oil and hoped I hadnt piled up the rod. I pushed it to 7000 revs 20 times that day and it never did a thing wrong, I think I got lucky, but that could have been a costly mistake, very costly.

--
Rebuilt a Kohler M10S for one of my old Wheel Horse GT's. Put the 3 pc oil ring in wrong and it smoked worse after the rebuild and all the new parts than it did before... I learned on that one, it was my first rebuild.

 

[gdb]

No great loss

I was doing some clearing one day and set my Mac 310(?) down after trimming some branches,then hopped on the tractor and started to do some bush hogging. Yeah, I clipped the top handles clean off. It still ran so I boxed it up with a note and a parts list, and left it at Goodwill. Maybe someone put it back together.I bought an Echo 440evl soon after and realized how little saw I had with the Mac!

 

[bassman]

My moms friend worked at a department store and uses to give the neibourhood kids returned toys and whatever else she would get for free from work, well one summer we spent a sunny day pulling brand new stretch armstrong figures out of there boxes and hooking one end to dads john deere garden tractor and the other to a tree and pulling them apart......

today a new in box stretch sells for around $1000.

that john deere garden tractor ended up a gokart that was crap for about a week then to the dump....

 

[billyjoejr]

In the early 80's my granddad gave me his 1968 Honda CL90.
It was a street bike but I only road it on trails and logging roads. Back before Weyerhaeuser blocked all the access points to their properties.
Lots of good memories on that bike.

Anyway, I hit a rut in one of the roads and went down. Broke off the rear turn signal. Figured I would never ride it on the road, so I might as well get ride of all the turn signals and extra electronics. I knew nothing of wiring or electronics.

So I clipped the wires and stuffed them into the frame. The bike never started after that. Tried a new battery, then gave up. Joined the National Guard, went to Basic and AIT. Came home and sold the bike for $10.00 in a yard sale(1987). Bike was still in very good condition.

Still kicking myself for that one.