Your recent repair? - 2021 to ?

[aja8888]

My pressure washer Honda 5 hp engine was running poor and then wouldn't start. Hard to pull and backfiring out the carburetor. I took off the valve cover and found a broken exhaust rocker. A little searching and apparently this is a fairly common problem. Bought a new rocker on Amazon for $8. Waiting for the replacement part, but here is picture of the cracked broken part.

Wonder how many other Honda powered equipment were scrapped because of this problem? Not a tough repair, if you have some mechanical skills can save yourself some money. View attachment 43794

Nice work! I fix all my stuff unless no parts can be found. I'm still running a 1980's 22" cut John Deere lawn mower with a cast aluminum deck and I have replaced the engine once (Briggs & Stratton) after the piston rings wore out.

 

[ERD50]

My pressure washer Honda 5 hp engine was running poor and then wouldn't start. Hard to pull and backfiring out the carburetor. I took off the valve cover and found a broken exhaust rocker. A little searching and apparently this is a fairly common problem. Bought a new rocker on Amazon for $8. Waiting for the replacement part, but here is picture of the cracked broken part. ...

I guess I haven't really torn down that many small engines, but I don't recall seeing a stamped valve rocker arm, I only recall cast units.

Better buy 2!

edit/add:

OK, these ring a bell - but they look a lot beefier with all those formed curved surfaces:

https://shop.briggsandstratton.com/products/briggs-and-stratton-691751-rocker-arm

-ERD50

 

[Sunset]

My pressure washer Honda 5 hp engine was running poor and then wouldn't start. Hard to pull and backfiring out the carburetor. I took off the valve cover and found a broken exhaust rocker. A little searching and apparently this is a fairly common problem. Bought a new rocker on Amazon for $8. Waiting for the replacement part, but here is picture of the cracked broken part.

Wonder how many other Honda powered equipment were scrapped because of this problem? Not a tough repair, if you have some mechanical skills can save yourself some money. View attachment 43794

I never would have thought to take off the valve cover. How did you know to do that and not just think it's some other issue like timing (loose magnet on flywheel, etc).

 

[Walt34]

Wonder how many other Honda powered equipment were scrapped because of this problem? Not a tough repair, if you have some mechanical skills can save yourself some money. View attachment 43794

It's not just Honda, but lots of small engines get thrown out because of what turns out to be a small problem. Very common is simply clogged carburetor jets from stale fuel. The issue is diagnosing it, and often it isn't worth taking to a shop. So if the owner doesn't have the tools and the expertise, plus the time to figure it out the engine gets tossed.

Small engine forums are full of stories of guys that pick up junked mowers, snow throwers, generators, etc. and fix them for $5 - $20 and then resell them. It can be a good part time or post-retirement job for those who enjoy it.

 

[NW-Bound]

Our water supplier has upgraded all the water use metering equipment and constantly monitors usage via microwave towers. I had a small toilet flapper leak (bypass the flap) last year and they sent me an email saying our water system has a leak somewhere. I found the bad flapper and fixed it.

My neighbor recently had an outside faucet start dripping when they were out of town on vacation. They notified him of the leak and he called me. I went over in his back yard and saw the faucet drip. I tightened the valve packing and all was good.

Good stuff!

That's really cool. Unlike electricity usage, with water there have to be some periods in the day where the water flow is exactly zero. If there's a constant flow, then there's most likely a leak.

My water meter is read electronically. However, I don't think it is sampled as often as my electric meter, which is read frequently due to the time-of-day billing.

Anyway, the city which is my water supplier said nothing about my high water usage. On the other hand, I shut down all of my solar panels and the whole house went on the grid during my month-long trip. My mother-in-law used very little electricity, but the ACs being back on the grid caused a much higher usage than normal.

Two days into the trip, I got an email from my electric company saying my usage showed an abnormal increase. They knew everything.

 

[38Chevy454]

I never would have thought to take off the valve cover. How did you know to do that and not just think it's some other issue like timing (loose magnet on flywheel, etc).

My thought process was that to be backfiring through the carb, it must be related to something with the valves. It had good compression. I thought an intake valve was sticking open or maybe being held open somehow. Once open and turning over by hand I saw the exhaust valve was barely opening, if at all with way excessive clearance. Further investigation saw the cracked rocker arm.

The Honda engine design is an OHV, that tab on the end of rocker arm is what rides on the cam. Cam operates by a belt drive, it's not a pure OHC, more like cam in head off to one side of the cylinder. The threaded adjuster is for setting valve clearance and pushes on the valve stem. Intake rocker is mirror image of exhaust.

On the fuel gummed up carbs, I have picked up mowers for free, then fixed the carb with simple cleaning. Sharpen blade, change oil and resold for $50-70 profit for approximately 1 hour time. My personal small engine stuff I run carb dry at end of season.

 

[Jerry1]

It's not just Honda, but lots of small engines get thrown out because of what turns out to be a small problem. Very common is simply clogged carburetor jets from stale fuel. The issue is diagnosing it, and often it isn't worth taking to a shop. So if the owner doesn't have the tools and the expertise, plus the time to figure it out the engine gets tossed.

Small engine forums are full of stories of guys that pick up junked mowers, snow throwers, generators, etc. and fix them for $5 - $20 and then resell them. It can be a good part time or post-retirement job for those who enjoy it.

IMO, there is no such thing as stale fuel. Certainly, the ethanol in the fuel will draw moisture and gunk up the carb. And yes, cleaning the carb will get you back up and running. It’s a common, simple problem that can be solved by running out the fuel at season end, using a fuel stabilizer or finding no ethanol fuel and using that.

As for the stale fuel, I was helping my SIL with his generator. Wouldn’t start and I went directly to the carb. I thought I cleaned it up but it still wouldn’t run. I was going to buy a new carb, but none were in stock and we needed the generator (electricity was out from a bad storm). So, I found a place that would clean the carb in an ultrasonic cleaner and for $40 bucks, we’re we in business.

When it didn’t work after I cleaned it, I started thinking it was the fuel. SIL figured it had been in there for 5 years. The original gunk in the carb made me believe this. Part of my diagnosis was to spray some starting fluid directly into the carb. Since it ran on starter fluid, I figured, bad gas. So to test this, I took some of the gas out of the tank and fed it directly into the carb with a little dropper. Well, it ran on that, so the gas wasn’t the problem. In fact, when I got the cleaned carb back, we ran out the rest of the fuel with no issues.

I’m only sharing this story because I had heard that gas goes bad. In fact, I was about to dump the gas in the generator (over a couple gallons) because I thought that bad gas was a real thing. After my sample of one, I don’t think that a real issue unless it gets contaminated some other way than just sitting in a tank for a long time and hopefully I’ll save someone the trouble of disposing of some gas because they think it’s the problem. Can it cause problems, can it ruin your machine, we’ll it surely isn’t a good practice to store gas in your machine for long periods of time if not treated, but I no longer think of gas as something that “goes bad”.

 

[Sunset]

It's not just Honda, but lots of small engines get thrown out because of what turns out to be a small problem. Very common is simply clogged carburetor jets from stale fuel. The issue is diagnosing it, and often it isn't worth taking to a shop. So if the owner doesn't have the tools and the expertise, plus the time to figure it out the engine gets tossed.

Small engine forums are full of stories of guys that pick up junked mowers, snow throwers, generators, etc. and fix them for $5 - $20 and then resell them. It can be a good part time or post-retirement job for those who enjoy it.

Long ago I picked up a mower set out for garbage just to have parts for some other B&S engines. When I got it home, I pulled the cord and it had clouds of smoke. I dumped out the extra oil, and it ran like a charm. So I kept it and used as it was nicer than my mower

There is a guy down the street always fixing some mower, he has about 8 in the backyard, lots of riding mowers. I figure he is generating some cash from his activity.

 

[Ronstar]

My pontoon boat motor used to run rough. I suspected ethanol in gas problems. Then an animal chewed through the fuel line. It was almost totally clogged with gunk - suspected it was ethanol.

I didn't want to mess with cleaning the carb since I had an offer on the boat. But I put an excessive amount of seafoam in the gas tank and let it run through a garbage can filled with water.

The water in this pic was clean when I started. The gray/brown color is what came out of the exhaust after the seafoam infusion. It ran fine after that.

 

[ERD50]

That's really cool. Unlike electricity usage, with water there have to be some periods in the day where the water flow is exactly zero. If there's a constant flow, then there's most likely a leak.

My water meter is read electronically. However, I don't think it is sampled as often as my electric meter, which is read frequently due to the time-of-day billing. ...

I'm not sure how often my water meter is read either. But it has a pretty clever leak detect system. The display shows:

LEAK INDICATOR (Faucet drip symbol) - Displays a possible leak:

OFF: No leak indicated.

Flashing Intermittent:- indicates that water has been used for at least 50 of the 96 15-minute intervals during the previous 24-hour period.

On Continuously: Indicates water use for all 96 15-minute intervals during the previous 24-hour period.

Unfortunately, to see that indicator, you need to lift the cover and shine a very bright light on it to trigger/power the display. There really should be some kind of 'alarm' to it.

I finally called the water company, and asked if they got that info from the meter, and if they would contact me if they saw a leak. The person on the phone seemed to understand what I meant, but no, either they don't get the info, or they don't forward it - missed opportunity!

-ERD50

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^ Thanks for the info. I will take a close look at my water meter to see if it has a similar leak indicator.

My water meter is in the front yard, sunken down just a foot below grade in a utility box. There's no frost danger here.

 

[Jerry1]

^^^ Thanks for the info. I will take a close look at my water meter to see if it has a similar leak indicator.

My water meter is in the front yard, sunken down just a foot below grade in a utility box. There's no frost danger here.

Not sure why you would need an indicator. Just shut off all things that use water and look at the meter. Then look at it again in a half hour or so. Or, make sure everything is off and check it before you leave the house for a few hours, like to dinner or such, and then check it when you get back. I’d say do it overnight, but at our age, I imagine there’s at least one, maybe two, toilet flushes during the night.

 

[NW-Bound]

Not sure why you would need an indicator. Just shut off all things that use water and look at the meter. Then look at it again in a half hour or so. Or, make sure everything is off and check it before you leave the house for a few hours, like to dinner or such, and then check it when you get back. I’d say do it overnight, but at our age, I imagine there’s at least one, maybe two, toilet flushes during the night.

Well, people managed to do in the past without this smart meter indicator, but if it is there I want to see it. Plus, it's instantaneous instead of reading the meter twice.

But more importantly, I am always curious about technology and what these thinggies do. And I do not want to see my city being behind ERD50's town in technology.

Here's one thing I have been curious about. My water meter is battery operated. How long does the battery last? And how does the meter reading work? What frequency is used, and what power level is the transmitter? What is the encoding modulation? Where's the receiver? How far is the communication range?

The enquiring mind of an engineer just wants to know.

 

[RobbieB]

I've had "bad gas" problems with 2 motorcycles, both carb'ed and both sitting over 6 months. Yeah, I know.

One went to the shop (700 pounds and 4 carbs), one I just replaced the carb with a $40 Chinese Amazon.

Yeah, if you have gravity fed carbs, you need stabilizer.

2 stroke outboards? I've always mixed the oil with the gas in the tank and the oil has stabilizer in it. Left them at the dock for a year and they start right up.

When I bought a generator for the house I got a dual fuel and removed the gas tank so I could store propane bottles on the shelf that replaced the tank.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, my electronic water meter is not as fancy as ERD50's. No leak indicator that I can see.

It still has a faceplate with mechanical counters, along with a dial sweep hand. I forgot to look how much water is one revolution of the dial hand, but it was not moving. When I opened the garden hose to a trickle of perhaps 1 gallon/few minutes, the dial hand moved barely perceptibly. So, I currently have no water leak.

There was a long loose wire coming out from the meter body. It was coiled up in a 3-turn loop. If that was a 1/4-wave antenna, then the frequency would not be that high.

However, on the Web, they say these water meters transmit at 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz. I am still scratching my head.

 

[38Chevy454]

So back to small engines. I picked up this mower for free on side of the road. Had a sign saying free, I checked and it had compression. Got home, and it fired up. Just was real dirty. I changed the very dirty oil, sharpened the blade, and then used my just repaired pressure washer to clean it up nice. Recall the pressure washer had the broken rocker arm back several posts in this thread. Nice test for the pressure washer.

Mower looks and runs good now. I'll save it until spring when mower demand is up and sell it for $75-90 range. Nice Toro 22 inch cut self propelled model. All for less than 1 hour time and couple dollars of oil. Easy cash money.

 

[njhowie]

Last week I saw a wine cooler/fridge on FB Marketplace that was free. Owner was giving it away because "it was no longer cooling". I picked it up over the weekend.

Got it home and found the start relay and overload protector (two small parts) were bad. Purchased from Amazon for $6 and $9 respectively. Replaced them today, compressor kicked in and it works just fine now. Nice and cold. Cosmetically, it looks brand new.

Did we really "need" a wine cooler/fridge - certainly not. Will we be happy to have/use it for the $15 repair cost? Absolutely!

 

[njhowie]

My pressure washer Honda 5 hp engine was running poor and then wouldn't start. Hard to pull and backfiring out the carburetor. I took off the valve cover and found a broken exhaust rocker. A little searching and apparently this is a fairly common problem. Bought a new rocker on Amazon for $8. Waiting for the replacement part, but here is picture of the cracked broken part.

Wonder how many other Honda powered equipment were scrapped because of this problem? Not a tough repair, if you have some mechanical skills can save yourself some money. View attachment 43794

I had an issue with my Honda power washer engine over the summer, also under the valve cover...camshaft pulley shattered. It made a horrible screeching noise when it broke, and obviously there was no compression once that happened. After opening it up and manually picking out the pieces I could, draining the oil and seeing more little bits come out, I purchased a new one, replaced, refilled the oil, and thankfully it came back to life. Has been running fine since. It's about 20 years old, so I expect things will age out on it, just a pain in the butt when they do.

 

[38Chevy454]

I had an issue with my Honda power washer engine over the summer, also under the valve cover...camshaft pulley shattered. It made a horrible screeching noise when it broke, and obviously there was no compression once that happened. After opening it up and manually picking out the pieces I could, draining the oil and seeing more little bits come out, I purchased a new one, replaced, refilled the oil, and thankfully it came back to life. Has been running fine since. It's about 20 years old, so I expect things will age out on it, just a pain in the butt when they do.

Great job on that repair. That is a much more catastrophic failure than my broken rocker arm. It's kind of funny how the cam/pulley assy is a molded plastic part. Doesn't seem a good choice for an engine part that is subject to heat cycles and operating stresses. The cam area on my Honda pressure washer engine had a small chunk chipped off the edge, but who knows how long it has been like that? Hopefully my engine cam/pulley stays together and does not try and copy yours

Another pat on the back for the free wine refrigerator and being able to diagnose and cheaply repair.

 

[njhowie]

Great job on that repair. That is a much more catastrophic failure than my broken rocker arm. It's kind of funny how the cam/pulley assy is a molded plastic part. Doesn't seem a good choice for an engine part that is subject to heat cycles and operating stresses. The cam area on my Honda pressure washer engine had a small chunk chipped off the edge, but who knows how long it has been like that? Hopefully my engine cam/pulley stays together and does not try and copy yours

Another pat on the back for the free wine refrigerator and being able to diagnose and cheaply repair.

Thanks, I appreciate all that.

Lately when things have broken, I've decided to attempt to repair on my own. If it's not working, what more harm could I really do?

The wine fridge was an experiment/challenge for myself to see if I could repair. Like your mower, it was free, so there was really nothing to lose.

 

[NW-Bound]

I "repaired" my garage door opener keypad today.

I put "repaired" in quotes because it only needed a battery change.

The keypad quit a couple of weeks ago. I already looked for a replacement on eBay, but Chamberlain does not sell it anymore. Everything is wireless now. Only one maker still sells a wired keypad, and he wanted 2x compared to the wireless ones. And both needed a battery, while my existing one does not.

Oh wait! What if my existing keypad only needed a new battery?

Now, you will say, NW-Bound you dummy, why don't you just open it up to see if you could replace the battery? Get off your butt, you lazy bum.

But you don't understand the situation. The main body that houses the possible battery, the box that has to be behind the wall on the inside for protection against tampering and is connected to the keypad by wires through a hole in the block wall, this box is now hidden behind a 6' free-standing steel shelf unit.

I had to empty the shelves of all the knick knacks before I could move the shelf unit to get to the main unit of the keypad. It got a 9V battery!

Darn faulty memory. I did not remember the last time I changed the battery. The battery was dated 2010. I probably put that in back in 2005 or so, but simply did not remember it. I will be senile soon, if not there already.

I installed this keypad way back when, perhaps in 1990. So, I had to replace the battery more than once. This last battery worked so long, and I simply forgot and thought it ran off the power from the wire from the opener. Darn!

PS. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltage of the battery. It was 3.5V.

 

[euro]

I "repaired" my garage door opener keypad today.

I put "repaired" in quotes because it only needed a battery change.

The keypad quit a couple of weeks ago. I already looked for a replacement on eBay, but Chamberlain does not sell it anymore. Everything is wireless now. Only one maker still sells a wired keypad, and he wanted 2x compared to the wireless ones. And both needed a battery, while my existing one does not.

Oh wait! What if my existing keypad only needed a new battery?

Now, you will say, NW-Bound you dummy, why don't you just open it up to see if you could replace the battery? Get off your butt, you lazy bum.

But you don't understand the situation. The main body that houses the possible battery, the box that has to be behind the wall on the inside for protection against tampering and is connected to the keypad by wires through a hole in the block wall, this box is now hidden behind a 6' free-standing steel shelf unit.

I had to empty the shelves of all the knick knacks before I could move the shelf unit to get to the main unit of the keypad. It got a 9V battery!

Darn faulty memory. I did not remember the last time I changed the battery. The battery was dated 2010. I probably put that in back in 2005 or so, but simply did not remember it. I will be senile soon, if not there already.

I installed this keypad way back when, perhaps in 1990. So, I had to replace the battery more than once. This last battery worked so long, and I simply forgot and thought it ran off the power from the wire from the opener. Darn!

PS. Out of curiosity, I measured the voltage of the battery. It was 3.5V.

If it makes you feel any better, MY garage door opener panel DOES run off the main power supply. Ironically, mine would be extremely accessible if I did have to swap batteries. Also installed in the early 90-ies.

 

[Souschef]

Speaking of garage door openers, I had a problem with mine. I moved into a new apartment development where all the lighting was LED.
When I hit the remote, the door would go up, but would not go down. If I turned the lights on the opener off, it would work. I had the maintenance people remove the lights. He told me there was a placard on the opener that said "Do not use LEDs".
Apparently the electronics in the LEDs interfered with the remote signal

 

[Jerry1]

Speaking of garage door openers, I had a problem with mine. I moved into a new apartment development where all the lighting was LED.
When I hit the remote, the door would go up, but would not go down. If I turned the lights on the opener off, it would work. I had the maintenance people remove the lights. He told me there was a placard on the opener that said "Do not use LEDs".
Apparently the electronics in the LEDs interfered with the remote signal

There are LED’s specifically made for garage door openers.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Genie-Universal-Garage-Door-Opener-LED-Light-Bulb-GLEDB2-R/310186985

 

[Ronstar]

Replaced the carburetor in my atv. 17 yo atv was sputtering and backfiring and wouldn't run unless the choke was on. Bought a carb rebuild kit first, but that didn't fix the problem. Then bought a oem carb. installed it, adjusted the idle and it runs fine. Then sold the atv.