As the summer is coming to a close in the NY area, I decided to perform maintenance on my old Troy Bilt mower today. Over the last month the self propelled feature had all but stopped working and it was idling very rough, sputtering and shutting off on me in mid cut. It was progressively getting harder to start it up, what was a single pull start had become a 5 to 10 pull only to run for about 5 minutes then shut off. So upon further inspection I discovered a host of issues with it. 1- Both the Blade control cable and the Drive cables were in bad shape. Both replaced. 2- The carb was full of gunk and build up. Took the entire carb apart and cleaned with with carb cleaner, almost lost the needle since I was doing this outside and needle was on top of a napkin and a gust of wind came. ARRG, finally found it about 5 minutes later 3-Air filter was dirty. Replaced it 4- Spark was burn pretty bad, replaced it. 5- Blade belt was in bad shape, replaced it. 6- Blade was very dull, but overall in OK shape, sharpened it. 7- The Governor spring was shot, replaced it. 8- Gave it a really good cleaning and WD40D (yes that's a verb in our household). The Troy Red looks brand new. I got all of the parts from Ereplacement parts and all arrived in 2 days. Less than $80 dollars and the mower is working as well as it did 10 years ago. I almost gave up on it and purchased a new one, but I really like this mower and I try to not subscribe to the buy new, I try to fix it just to say I did. I get satisfaction from making old new again, or at least in working order. Im sure to most this is routine but for this desk jockey IT Application Specialist, this was hard work. LOL.
Good job. I hate all the throw away stuff they make these days. Cheaper to buy new junk than replace almost new junk.
Good work . This thread is a good reminder for seasonal maintenance. I need to re-sharpen my blade for leaf mulching season. I've read somewhere to check the balance of the blade once re-sharpened to reduce blade wobble issues.
Good job Kat. Well worth the effort. Not only does it run better, but prolly cuts a lot better too... It's just so sad tho... the work never happened cause I don't see any pics... ... ...
Yes, i should have taken pics of the ordeal but I didnt think of it until after. Cleaning out the carburetor would have been a good video for me to take, Ive never done that before and it would have been nice to keep as a keepsake. LOL.
