The Great Big Lawnmower Thread

Chinese built mower, an odd one for sale in some of the hardware stores, but it has a decent B&S engine, looks similar to Cobra and other brands. I don't know who distributes it here, but I see a 22" alloy deck variant at €600 in some Topline, Grange stores etc, which suggests it's a bit better than the run of the mill generics. That used 20" one for sale is basic enough, but be wary of finding exact parts such as cables, wheels etc. If you have breakdowns. There's an email address for the European contact, 'Conor at luxiaochu@warrior-tools.com ' on the company website, so you could ask him. I'm guessing it was maybe €400, new, or less. I wouldn't pay more than €200 for that one, looks maybe 5 years old, but little wear on the foam handgrip, so mightn't have done much work.

http://www.warrior-tools.com/product/14/

Unless it died with lots of banging and clattering and smoke, it's unlikely to be anything serious. It could be as simple as a cable becoming detached, a fuel blockage, a lot of small things. If it still turns over on the starter, and it sounds the same as it turns, then that rules out a broken valves or timing. Take out a plug, reconnect its cable and turn over. If there's no spark, fix will be simple. John Deere is a sought after name, a running machine, even 10 years old, is worth a premium. It's a big 107cm cut, v twin engine, worth repairing, certainly work an estimate.

Finally got the Stihl 5112Z delivered this week after weeks waiting since ordering it. Used it for the first time yesterday, very impressed with the quality of the cut and it leaves a lovely finish on the lawn compared to the old self propelled I had been using up to now. Glad I went for a machine with a big enough engine because when I was mowing the long sloping lawn going uphill you could feel that the engine was using all of the power at it's disposal.

Overall quite happy with it, good wide cut and when I get a bit more used to operating it I'd say I'll be able to get the 0.5 acre of lawns done in no time at all. The only thing I'm not too happy with is the grass box. I had to take it off before using the mower because it had been delivered with the mulching insert already fitted and I wanted to take that out. Trying to get the grass box back on was an absolute nightmare even though I was following the manual instructions. Finally discovered that when the release handle on top was pulled up it still wasn't providing enough clearance for the mower hooks to latch on. It's a very wide handle and needs to be pulled up tight at both ends to provide the neccessary clearance for the hooks, but you can only pull it up with one hand as the other hand is needed to hold the bottom of the box in place! So had to keep one end of the handle pulled up with a cable tie while pulling the other end up with my hand and finally that worked. So, not exactly relishing having to go through all that every time the grass box has to be put back on.

Also when mowing, on one occasion when I went to empty the grass box it was stuck and would not open. Had to get off and jiggle the box around while pressing the lever down and then it freed itself. That only happened on the last time emptying, the previous two times it was fine, so hoping it was just a once off.

But apart from the grass box issues I'm quite happy with the mower itself. It's my first ride on so may have a few questions. First one is regarding the battery. Does starting the engine take much out of the battery and should I be letting it run for a while after starting? I'm asking because as well as mowing I'll be using it with a trailer to move stuff around the garden and the yard and just wondering if it's ok to start it, drive a short distance towing some stuff and then turn it off again to unload? Or will doing that repeatedly drain the battery and should be it left running instead while loading and unloading?

Thanks for that info C.O.

Yeah, I meant to ask if there was any particular charger people would recommend. I intend avoiding the own brand Stihl one as it's sure to be way overpriced.

It may have been asked but dose anyone know who supplies battery powered ride on's in Ireland. I think its time to ditch the 5lt petrol can.

The lidl one is fine its "intelligent" and I've seen it left connected to the same battery for months, the only downsides are a) it goes off with the power and you have to reset it and b) it won't bring a totally flat battery back to life but for about €15 last time I bought one you can't have everything.

this looks like great craic, like a beach buggy😎

All it does is prime the carburetor it doesn't matter what size it is provided you can fit it somewhere on the engine. If its smaller it doesn't matter just pump it a couple more times.

If the original bulb base clips in place then see if you can keep the base, dump the rubber bit and drill say a 10mm hole where the pipe is attached then epoxy resin the new smaller primer to the old base with the new or old pipe going out the hole?

Primer has no function once it starts. Its something else blocking fuel. Take off the bowl and clean out.

Also check that the crankcase vent hose hasn't detached.

Without curveballs like this, you'd have no reason for expletives when doing a repair, which is very refreshing to the soul. It's especially enjoyable to listen to a disembodied pair of legs poking out from under a car/tractor/agricultural machine bemoaning,'"the ef*** c who last put this together, if I find the B***x, I'll shove this Eff*** metric wrench up his 3/4"......" etc, etc. Happy memories from the very distant Imperial-to-Metric past. I discovered that the same heavy repair motivational technique could be applied to almost any challenging situation as a personal aid, no matter the task.

Does it have an oil filter? Did you turn engine over to fill it and other cavities, then stop and recheck level. Maybe you didn't get a full drain of the old if you were on a slope. Equally, don't check oil level on a slope. Lots of things will throw the amount filled (some cars' auto transmissions only drain about 60% of its oil by design, I had a CVT Audi like that). If the oil is up to the full marker after running for a few minutes then you're grand. If the oil is slightly discoloured from fresh, it means you had reasonable residual from the drain

Its also worth checking that you have the correct stick, if you bought it used it could have the wrong one. Look for a part number on the stick.

Do an "oil change" drain all the oil and leave a little longer than normal so you drain as much as possible. If you can measure how much oil was in the engine so you know how big the excess was. Then refil to the correct dipstick level and see how much you have left.

If its not massively over then post back as we can look into what it could be.

Battery terminals probably need to be tightened. Pre sale prep seems to have been botched. These are often delivered sans oil, battery not installed.

That's a charger port or an accessory port. If you don't have a meter, see if the instrument lights, If any, go off when you're keying. Clicking on starting is usually a poor connection, or a nearly flat battery, which loses continuity under the starter load, which releases the solenoid, then voltage rises again and solenoid closes again and so on. Check push on connectors in the battery, pull off and clean, they should be really tight. They really should be screw down for starter current. Does that mower come with a charger? Some smaller mowers don't have an alternator, so you have to keep it charged. If you've been starting it a lot then it might need a charge.

There is no mention of needing to charge the battery between uses in the manual and the parts list for the engine indicates there is a "charge coil assembly" so while it could be a flat battery in regular use you should not need to charge the battery.

What all the time or just when they are supposed to?

Then its working bar the bit that isn't :-) I'd keep looking elsewhere for the problem, cabling and switches.

The only way to sort out if it is the main board is to trace back the cabling (the colour coding might help) and see where the connection is made on the main board. Once you have done that with that specific cable disconnected you can see if the light is still on or if it comes on when you short out the cable. If the light goes goes on and off along with the buzzer with the connections shorted and then not shorted or the other way around then the main board is fine.

If there is more than one connector block to the main board then removing them one at a time might help indicate which one is or is not connected to the grass full switch. - We are still on about the grass box full indicator?