Norm, One of the funniest attempts at fixing a mower was on a 70s Rover I picked up at the local tip shop a few years ago. Someone obviously must have had trouble starting it, so they had stretched out the spring on the carby about 20cm and had it fastened to the back of the cowl with a screw. I'm not sure what they hoped to achieve by this. I can only guess it was done out of sheer frustration. The reason why the mower would not go should have been obvious. The tank and carby were full of gunk. I flushed everything out and replaced the carby spring, put in some new fuel and oil, gave it a pull and it ran like a new machine.

A friend was telling me about a whipper snipper at a tip shop. Someone had brought it in because it wouldn't go. The first thing he noticed was the spark plug lead was not connected. He puts the lead back on the plug, gives it one pull and away it goes. Hard to believe, but someone had actually taken this brand new Stihl whipper snipper to the tip because they did not realize that a spark is needed to make an engine run!

The long line up of Chinese mowers at our local tip is a good case in point. Clearly the motors are the main issue, as the bodies still always look good. In fact some of the machines could be mistaken for being brand new. They stop and people just take them to the dump and go out and buy a new one. It is a sad indictment on our modern throwaway lifestyle which must soon come to an end.

As for batteries I ended up going for a highly dangerous Lithium battery. I made sure to also buy a flame-proof bag to charge and store it in and got one that has a trickle charger. Apparently it is the "fast charge" ones that are dangerous. They charge too fast ad overheat. It is amazing how much power can be locked inside one of these tiny batteries that could almost fit in your pocket.