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Nate Nagel Nate Nagel is offline
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Default Craftsman push lawnmower wobble after hitting rocks won't start

On 07/05/2010 01:24 AM, James H. wrote:
On Sun, 4 Jul 2010 22:15:32 -0700 (PDT), harry wrote:

IT sounds like the engine is unbalanced

Yes. Something went unbalanced but I checked (visually only) the blade
itself which seems to be all nicked up but no worse than it has been for a
loooong time.

therefor some rotating part has broken off or the crankshaft is bent.

It could be a bent crankshaft. I guess. But, I've hit far worse than what
made this happen this time as it happened all of a sudden on me.

How would I know if the crankshaft is bent?

Or possibly the engine has come loose on it's mountings.

I didn't think of that. Will check tomorrow but I didn't notice anything
loose as I flipped the lawn mower over to look at the blade.

The obvious one would be the cutter blade. Check that it's running
without a wobble ie not bent.

It doesn't look bent. It doesn't look like it's wobbling. Would that
prevent it from restarting? It ran for a few minutes "after the accident"
but roughly - and now it just won't start.

Or, as it won't start something associated with the igntion system.

Could be. I don't see how that would be associated with hitting something
but as I said, it wasn't all that much that I hit (I've run over far worse
with that mower) so maybe something just broke in the ignition. I can pull
the plug and check.


if it's got a Tecumseh engine, the normal consequence of hitting
something is that the flywheel key shears (it's designed to do that, to
protect the crank) and throws off the ignition timing. BTDT... the
fact that it ran rough and now won't start sounds very familiar... went
through this several times at a house I used to live in, yard was very
lumpy and if you didn't mow often enough you hit a couple stealth roots.
I could tell when I'd sheared the key by the mower starting to run
rough from the retarded ignition timing, but it'd run for a while until
I hit another root/rock/whatever and then I'd be done for.

the unbalance is likely due to a bent blade; if it's not, you've likely
bent the crank which means your mower is junk.

nate

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