From the Dungeon            Allan Copland            02 April 2007

I was tasked with fixing the lawnmower yesterday. NO, it's NOT an April fool.   The mower is powered by a 4.5HP Briggs & Stratton donkey... a little side-valve engine, the sort of technology that was popular in the 1920's. I checked the plug (sooty and gungy... so I cleaned it up and 'baked' it a bit on the gas cooker to clean it and restore it to a nice 'pale-chocolate' finish. Still no-go. Sparks aplenty when I turned the engine over.  Not a lot to go wrong with a 'potted' magneto.  I stripped and cleaned the carb then reassembled it... still no-go. Then I wondered if these was oil in it!!! There was... right up to the marker on the dipstick. I decided to change the oil. These things don't have sump plugs so I turned the mower upside down and collected the oil in an old carrier bag. It looked like somewhat runny treacle! I had topped the oil up religiously twice a year for 11 years but it had never been replaced. No wonder it diddums want to start... the oil was like glue!
I glugged 600ml of Castrol GTX into it ( I used to sell a LOT of GTX about 35 years ago in a different life) and it fired up on the first attempt. It was quite satisfying watching Sandra tearing around the garden after it. It's never worked so well before. At full tilt, she was having to literally run after it. Made a nice change from listening to 'what would YOU know about lawnmower engines'.

73 Al,

GM1SXX

The moral of this story... If your lawnmower is coming up on 10 years old and you have never ever changed the oil... DO IT!