Days end today.
Spent about 4 hours all up today & learned heaps.
What I did :
1) New blades onto blade carrier then onto mower - (thx normk)
2) Looked at governor springs - It appeared that the black butterfly clip was only in "full on" or "full off" positions - no freedom of movement between - Then took the top off to look at the vane - It too would only be at "full on" or "full off" - Took the vane off and cleaned & lubricated it (WD40) - there was heaps of dust/dirt around & in it. - Then reconnected to throttle/governor spring linkage - Now it has full freedom and "jiggles" around nicely. Must have been jammed somewhere (thx wce).
3) While toggling the linkage, the small governor spring broke off at the end (rust?) - I refashioned the end & reconnected - I also moved the "lug" for the idler spring back to a more upright position (thx Tyler)
4) Oil topup & started - WOW - SUCCESS !!!!! - Small amount of smoke for about 2 minutes & idleing was beautiful. No obvious knocking.
5) To get rid of the black oil, then did 3 oil changes (cheap year old 20W50) with 10 minutes static running between each change. Butterfly clip could be moved easily while running. Oil was "clearish" after the third run - Finally, put in SAE30 oil - (thx Tyler again)
6) Air Filter on, throttle cable reconnected, then mowed the 400sqm lawn (45 mins) to impress my wife.
7) All the time the low revs were beautiful and still no obvious knocking, but it would not rev to the high end. Felt it was revving about 75%. May struggle in really thick grass but not a problem for me at the moment. Checked the big governor spring & it was still slack even when throttled up fully. I will play with this big spring in my next chapter. I feel more confident in them now and might even get new ones for a few bucks.
8) No obvious problems with surging or hunting so left carby alone - Also no signs of kickback (thx normk)
9) Got standing ovation from my wife & daughter.
Still very impressed with the builds of these old mowers (23yo). If only my dishwasher, or washing machine would be the same.
All up, the learnings for me have been fantastic & all your ideas were of great assistance.
Without them I would be still fumbling around, doing unneeded stuff and not doing the needed stuff.
Swearing a lot, and maybe even hurting myself.
AND I WON THE BET !!!!
Will collect from my wife tonight after the football.
