Lawnmower woes

[Barking Mat]

That's a suitably weird video containing some fine advice. Thanks, made me laugh.

 

[graffian]

I had a honda crank given to me to straighten, careful application of a mer and the bloke
was happy with it when he put his mower back together.
Pity you weren't closer, I have a Honda Harmony 216 with a rusted out deck. Motor is great.
Rust seems to kill mowers like this, so motors shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[MCKDAVID]

I might just take you up on the offer if I may - as soon as travel restrictions are eased I’ll be coming to Walthamstow, can’t be too far from you .

I’ve got another machine to tide me over so now not under any time pressure.

If not I’m going to take a trip to the south of France to visit @MCKDAVID - I need a new beret anyway so the trip will be worth it!

welcome anytime,

 

[Mick Annick]

You sure about that shaft being 25mm? This seems to be closer to 22mm (7/8”) than 25mm

They do two sizes of crank - 22.5mm and 25mm

 

[Mick Annick]

Unless I can find a 22.5mm drive pulley and corresponding blade mounting sadly not, but I am looking for them

 

[Mick Annick]

Two months on, and the mower has at last made it into the workshop. apart from my clumsiness in busting it in the first place, and then breaking the blade mount, it is in very good nick - the deck is cast alloy and undamaged, all the ancillaries are fine, so I’ve stripped the machine down and got the engine on the bench.

I’ve had to cut off the blade mounting pulley and the drive pulley, though of course with a 10 year old machine finding replacements is a challenge. Bearing Shop have a universal pulley with a separate taper lock bush to match it to the shaft size required - has anyone any experience of these?

Next I need to get a puller to remove the flywheel - it’s soaking in plusgas at the moment, then I can get the crank out. Sadly I don’t think I’ll have got it out by Wednesday, when we depart for the UK for our first visit in over a year, otherwise @Screwdriver would be getting a visit .

More to follow…

 

[Mick Annick]

Local classic car garage pulled the flywheel off for me this morning, so can now see the extent of the bent crank:

 

[Mick Annick]

Photo

 

[Brad93]

Photo

View attachment 306002

That would press out. You could then heat straighten

 

[Mick Annick]

That would press out. You could then heat straighten

I’d be round to yours or @Screwdriver with it if I had time - only got a few days in the UK next week and lots of family visits to cram in

 

[Screwdriver]

Aha! So I promised to fix that huh?

Luckily, I do have a suitable flypress and even oxy if flame straightening is possible.

If this transpires, I'll post it here so we can all have a laugh.

 

[Mick Annick]

A trip to west London this morning has resulted in an acceptably straight crankshaft thanks to @Screwdriver - thank you Steve. Photos of the rebuild to follow.

 

[Screwdriver]

A trip to west London this morning has resulted in an acceptably straight crankshaft thanks to @Screwdriver - thank you Steve. Photos of the rebuild to follow.

I might do a reconstruction (if it turns out to be usably straight!) but we did three bonks on the flypress. Bit fiddly to set it up on a couple of V blocks with the bent end hanging over and the other half bolted down. It was about 5-6mm off, took out the bulk in one go. The last 1-2mm was tricky since to reach the yield point, it needed a bit too much overbend which looked like it would upset the pressed on gears.