G’day Norm
I took the combination cowling and tank assembly off to give the Special 160 a good clean. It was pretty well caked up with oily residue combined with dust which had then set solid. The engine fins were blocked and the carby was covered in a solid casing of congealed muck up to 1/4” thick.
I started with a bit of brushing which just made more mess; so I abandoned that and went to the SCA spray-on degreaser. This was slower than I’d like but is more gentle than the other more caustic stuff we have. I sprayed it on and then gave it a good scrub with a stiff nylon brush before hosing off. Half a dozen cycles of this did a semi-decent job.
There were still quite a few deposits that refused to budge so I grabbed a couple of pieces of hardwood split from my firewood and turned them into scrapers by splitting them down a to about 3/8” thickness and forming a few different shaped ends. I’ve found, when working on older mechanical things, that these “hand made” scrapers are much less likely to damage parts and surfaces than metal or plastic scrapers. Combining my scraping and prodding with the degreaser I removed most of the gunk.
Returning the cleaned machine to the shed I dried it down with old rags before blowing a bit of heat into it with the heat gun to minimise lurking moisture. I was expecting it to be a bit grumpy after it’s first bath in 40 years but it started second pull.
Mowing the top lawn was a good test for the governor mechanism, which now seems to be working significantly better. However, a slow leak has showed itself somewhere on the carby. Not sure where from. The “tickler” is a prime suspect but it could also be the float bowl gasket. I’m going to need to strip it down and take a look, probably have a bit of a job finding “o” rings to fit that tickler mechanism.
On the blades, I took them off and one was missing a chunk and they were a different shape, when lined up. They’re the fluted type. I took them to the anvil and persuaded them to the same profile and then reground them to the same shape. When bolted back up there was less vibration.
I looked in my boxes of bits for new blades but there were none suitable. However, it did remind me one reason why I’m cautious about mower blades. Some time back we had a bulk box from somewhere and they weren’t properly hardened. They’d lose their edge after a day of mowing, real time wasters.
Anyway, now to find g3 gaskets and “o” rings. At least it’s working properly aside from the leak!
Ironbark
Last edited by Ironbark; 17/03/22 03:46 PM. Reason: Typo
