Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

MNRunner: 

I've been a motorhead all of my life.  I've never charged anyone a cent for fixing something for them.  I do it because, as JRT says, we enjoy the challenge of fixing something, especially at no cost to either myself or the owner.  More often than not, I can.  Occasionally money might be spent but judiciously. 

I recall fixing a non-starting snow blower for a friend's sister.  It was a very old Craftsman from the early 70's not in the greatest shape.  It was the first snow storm of the year.   My buddy and I drove over to the sister's house and on the way, he was explaining to me that HE had recommended a "friend of the family" mechanic to go over the snow blower for her only a month or so earlier.   So I fix it in a few minutes (dirt in float bowl and auger shear pins broken).   As we were driving home, he told me that he was very disappointed that we had to fix the snow blower because his sister had just shelled out ........  $480.00 for repairs!!!!   I was dumbfounded.   I told him the machine isn't worth $150.00, why would she pay him that much to fix it?   "Friend of the family", pay the bill.  That's absolute b.s.  If he were a friend, he wouldn't be sticking it to the guy's sister.  Would he?  And, it's not like she's got tons of money being a single mom working a low paying, menial job. 

It's rewarding  to help people, usually friends and relatives, to save them a few bucks and often a lot of bucks.  As we are all aware, 90% of stuff that doesn't work needs a very simple fix.  Usually fuel related, which is often caused by negligence. 

JRT: 

I agree, that the ring  retainer pins should be offset at least an inch or so.  You'd think that having both joints in the same location would allow a bit of blow-by.   Obviously hardly enough to matter.   The pins on my Yamaha pistons are spread a good inch and a half apart. 

It's hard to tell by looking at pictures but, that crank has to be defective.  Spinning it up on a lathe should show imbalance.  I'd also check it with a dial indicator to see if it's warped.  I suspect that the new crank will solve the problem.  Too bad about the broken ring.  I hate when a $2.00 part holds up a project.

Can you spin up a crank on a lathe to check for imbalance, though? I'd expect the crank, by itself, *should* not be balanced, since isn't it also trying to help reduce the imbalance due to the connecting rod and piston going back and forth? If the crank itself were balanced, then there's nothing to help counteract the conrod & piston. I would agree on using a dial indicator to check for runout, at least.

Now I'm curious- would you consider buying a new crank for the engine? If I could confirm that the crank is *definitely* bad, then I might consider that. But it also needs a flywheel. Barring some really cheap source for those, I will admit I, personally, might consider the engine too far gone (but I've also never had to do that kind of major surgery on an engine). Based on what I saw for Tecumseh crank pricing, a new one could be ~$70 or so, plus a flywheel, maybe at a similar price? I wouldn't pay those prices to try and resurrect it, unless I could be sure those would do it, and I could definitely sell the machine for more. But that's just me. Of course, a similar, inexpensive machine that got backed into, but still has a good engine, could be a nice source for parts.

Thus far I've primarily just fixed machines for me. Some for family. Not 'cause I'm unwilling to do it for friends, just haven't really been asked. I've fixed plenty of computers for friends & family. There is something fun about getting a device working properly again. And it's nice when it turns out to be just bad gas or something similarly straightforward.

trouts2 - I agree, Bumping up the RPM on these engines does seem to be the only difference I've been able to find that explains the increase in HP. 
And as borat's video clearly showed.  Higher RPM does make a difference the blowers performance.  Glad to hear I'm not the only one who has made the
mistake with the ring.  Bugs me when I do things like that, but sometimes that's how you learn.  Trial and error.  Don't mind the trials, don't like the errors.

borat - I always amazes me what some people end up paying for repairs.  As you said most problems are fuel / carb. related and not a big deal.
Other issues are simple part swap fixes.  I love being able to fix things for someone and feel fortunate to have the knowledge and ability to be able to do so.
Been working on all kinds of things for many years.  Guess that is why I kind of enjoy trying to figuring out things like the problems with this engine.
It's a challenge, unlike a lot of other no-brainer repairs.

I just ran across an ad on CL where a guy is selling his Toro 3650 because it needs a new flywheel.  Hmmmm,  Maybe there is a problem Toro isn't talking
much about.  Thought this was curious as well.  Note:  On page 32 of the R-tek engine manual, it states:  " NOTE: Replace crankshaft and/or flywheel if keyway is distorted or cracked in any way." 

I looked and the B&S engine manual link you posted (thank you).  Read that the crank / rod needle bearing count is 33.  You were close.
I know, it's usually not the cost of the part it's the delay.  Although the rings are going to cost me about $20.00 unless I can find a junk engine somewhere.
Either way, it's money well spent if I can get things running correctly again, the blowers in great shape.

RedOctobyr wrote:
Well actually I did have a crankshaft and flywheel from another R-Tek.  It was in a CCR2400 that I parted out.
 I sold a few parts (carb, ign. coil) to get back what I had paid for the blower and make a little.  Then kept the rest for spare parts.  I don't do a whole lot of repairs on other people's blowers
I mainly buy used blowers.  Repair them for resale, or keep and upgrade / replace my personal use blowers.  This 210R will be a big upgrade, it will replace my CCR2450.
I'll be going from a 2001 model year blower to a 2010 model.  I'll probably ask $200.00 for the 2450 but will take less (considering the lack of snow winter we've had).
Only have $25.00 in the 2450 and a few hours time.  I'll probably have about $65.00 total in the 210R barring any other problems. 
So doing the math, the 2010 Toro 210R will cost me nothing. And I'll have made $110.00 for the time I spent in both blowers. 

Another thing that just dawned on me about this Toro.  I got all of the manuals for the blower.  And it states  the it has a "2 year full coverage warranty". 
The sticker on the engine has a manufacture date of 04/2010.  So the blower is no more than 1 year 10 month old.
Wonder why the previous owner didn't take it in for a warranty repair?  Never owned a new blower so have no idea how that works.

But if Toro knows they have a problem with bad cranks and or flywheels maybe they just replace the entire blower.
And the owners are told they can just keep the old ones if they choose to.  I have no idea.

As nice as it would be of Toro to let people keep an old one, I have to expect they wouldn't want to do that. There must be better things they can do than give out additional free machines to the market, while leaving the old ones to be re-sold or something. When Cash For Clunkers happened, you didn't get to keep your old car This would have been Blowers For Broken.

"Can you spin up a crank on a lathe to check for imbalance, though? I'd expect the crank, by itself, *should* not be balanced, since isn't it also trying to help reduce the imbalance due to the connecting rod and piston going back and forth?"

That makes sense. 

Turning the crank on the lathe to watch  to see if the threaded end wobbles would be more productive.  But then, so would a dial indicator.

JRT: 

From page 23 of the manual:

"If a new needle bearing set (32 needles) is being installed, the set will come on strip of paper and the needles will be coated with wax on one side. "

Don't drive yourself nuts looking for no. 33. 

I have to say, it's always cool to get to see the inside of an engine that's been torn apart. I'm somewhat inspired.

I have a 2-stroke weedwhacker that I'm hoping to replace with something better. It stopped running over the summer, seemed like a fuel delivery problem; I replaced the diaphragm in the carb, then it ran fine. Until the next time, and now it's tough to get running, or to keep running. It's just a cheap machine (was free to me), missing the guard, whose main redeeming quality was that it ran. Now it doesn't even have that

Really don't have the desire to spend a bunch of time to try and get it back on its feet, so perhaps I'll open the engine up instead. That would be interesting. I've never gone deeper into an engine than taking the head off (well, except for a tiny nitro-powered R/C engine which blew a conrod, and had surgery to install a new one). I'm always impressed when someone just dives deep into an engine (even better when the rest of us also get to see pics). It's one of those things I've just never had to do, so I've never tried it.

borat wrote:

Interesting, on page 30 of the "2 Cycle Engines Service and Repair Instructions". 
(I downloaded the PDF from the link you posted)
It says "When reusing needles, coat crank pin with a thin coat of grease. Install needles (33 to a set) Fig. 13
So which is it guys 32 or 33 ? 

I counted 32 on the image and read 32 needles on page 23 of the manual.  Do you think you can put 16 needles on one side of the crank journal and 17 needles on the other?   Have you actually counted your needles?   If you have 32, I'd go with 32.