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Lawn Mower Repair Tips

Starting Your Own Small Engine Business

You are either thinking about it or you are going to make it happen. One way or another you are going to quit your day job eventually or you want to make some money on the side. I can understand that because that is exactly what I wanted when starting my own small engine business.

The problem I found out was there were plenty of service manuals you could buy to help you repair things, there just weren’t any books that would teach you how to actually run this type of business and make money doing these services.

So what did I do, I wrote my own! Fortunately for me I had 20 years of experience running other businesses and I drew from that experience to put together an easy to read and follow step by step book that would help you get your small engine repair business up and running faster and making more money than you would if you had to figure it all out on your own through trial and error.

Trial and error costs you money for each mistake that you make. You can only stay in business as long as you can afford those mistakes! And make them you will but you will also learn from them. A small business is filled with problems that can easily cost you thousands if you don’t figure out a solution to them.

Most people go out and buy some tools, tell a few friends that they are starting a business and maybe hang out a sign. That is an OK way to start but you will not get near the business you could if you marketing it correctly and sold your services in the right way. Leaving money on the table is a bad thing because this can be a seasonal business as most of the work is lawn mower related. You have to make as much money as you can during the busy season to help tide you over for winter.

“How to Start and Make Money in a Small Engine Repair Business” will help you get a jumpstart on your business and will show you how to get starting in the right direction. It covers setting up your business structure, insurance, sales, marketing, education and training, where to get parts, setting up your shop, accounting, taxes and one of the more important topics is what to say yes or no to.

An investment in your business start-up is one of the best investments you can make to help you avoid a catastrophe that you might not see coming. As I mentioned earlier, you can only stay in business as long as you can afford your mistakes.

When you purchase a copy of my book, you get a 6-month FREE listing on my National Referral Website at Lawn Mower Repair Service. Just look inside the front cover for how to get listed. Believe me, this will be the best $20 you spend on your new business!

small-engine-repair-front-book-cover
Get your copy on Amazon today!
Riding Lawn Mower Repair

Troy-Bilt Riding Lawn Mower Repair Bakersfield CA

Whether you need a tune-up or a tear down or just your preventive maintenance performed, we are here to help. Your lawn mower will be professionally taken care of and repaired so that it will run and cut well. A good running lawn mower is easier on the engine and will not overheat. As long as you are doing your part in keeping the engine clean as well as the deck and transmission areas, you should have fewer breakdowns to worry about.

Your riding lawn mower is a very important tool that needs to be professionally maintained to keep it running its best.

When you need expert Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower repair, call our shop and let us check out your lawn mower and give it the maintenance or repairs that are needed. Our shop works on all models of Troy-Bilt lawn mowers and has the tools, training, knowledge and parts to get yours running quickly. We understand the hassle of waiting weeks to get your lawn mower back and will work hard to troubleshoot it and get it back in your care soon. Your lawn mower is a very important machine that keeps your yard looking healthy and maintained. By taking great care of it, your lawn mower will run well for a long time to come.

Our Bakersfield CA riding lawn mower repair shop is here to help with all your lawn mower problems and will fix yours as quickly as possible.

With the right mix of preventive maintenance and care, your Troy-Bilt lawn mower will last for many years to come.

Call our shop for all your Troy-Bilt Riding Lawn Mower Repair in Bakersfield CA.

 

Lawn Mower Repair Tips, Push and Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Repair, Riding Lawn Mower Repair

How To Store My Lawn Mower in the Winter

If you ask this question to 10 different lawn mower repair technicians, more than likely you will get 10 different answers! This topic will be the debate for as long as we burn gasoline in our lawn mowers and especially if it is laced with ethanol.

Our biggest problem come springtime is that the lawn mower doesn’t want to start. Why? Because the fuel in it has either went bad or the battery has run down on a riding mower or a self-propelled with a key start. There are other reasons of course but those are the most common.

Regarding our earlier conversation about fuel. There are two schools of thought about what to do with it. You can either treat your fuel with stabilizer (my favorite is Ethanol Shield) or you can run the engine until it is out of gas. I like to do a little of both depending on what machine I am prepping for winter. I add the fuel stabilizer to all of my fuel when I buy it, so I have a constant supply of stabilizer already in the gas for both 2-cycle and 4-cycle equipment. What I do for lawn mowers is to leave the gas in them all winter long. If the mower has a shutoff valve, I will turn the gas off, start the mower and then let it die when it runs out of fuel. That’s it and I am done. If you don’t want to use fuel stabilizer, then you should be running that mower out of gas or it won’t be starting in the springtime.

The smart thing to do is to prep your lawn mower for the upcoming season when you put it away and I will tell you how to do just that as well.

Let’s break this down by different types of lawn mowers to make things easier shall we….

Push Mower Winter Storage

The ordinary push mower does not have a lot of parts so storing them for winter is pretty simple. To get it ready for next year and store it, perform the following;

  1. Add fuel stabilizer to the gas tank.
  2. Run the mower for 10 minutes to get the engine warm.
  3. Change the oil.
  4. Change the air filter and sparkplug.
  5. Remove the sparkplug wire from the sparkplug.
  6. Remove the blade and sharpen it and scrape the deck. Re-install the blade and the sparkplug wire.
  7. Blow off the engine and deck with compressed air.
  8. Lubricate cables, wheel bolts and linkages with silicone spray.
  9. Check for any damage or missing parts and order them or bring the mower to your lawn mower mechanic.
  10. Store the mower in a place where it won’t get damaged and rodents will not move into it.

Self-Propelled Lawn Mower Winter Storage

The self-propelled lawn mower has a lot more parts so storing them for winter is a little more time consuming. To get it ready for next year and store it, perform the following;

  1. Add fuel stabilizer to the gas tank.
  2. Run the mower for 10 minutes to get the engine warm.
  3. Change the oil.
  4. Change the air filter and sparkplug.
  5. Remove the sparkplug wire from the sparkplug.
  6. Remove the blade and sharpen it and scrape the deck. Re-install the blade and sparkplug wire.
  7. Blow off the engine and deck with compressed air.
  8. Lubricate cables, wheel bolts and linkages with silicone spray.
  9. Check for any damage or missing parts and order them or bring the mower to your lawn mower mechanic.
  10. Remove the cover for the drive belt, clean out the grass and check the belt for wear such as cracks, a shiny appearance or it is sitting deep in the pulley, which means it has worn out. Install a new belt if it is and replace the cover.
  11. Remove the drive wheels and check the drive gears to see if they are wearing out. Spray the gears if they are metal with silicone spray as well as the wheel bolt.
  12. If your mower has a battery, put it on the trickle charger that came with it. If you don’t have one you can remove the battery and recharge it and keep it in a warm place and re-install in the spring.
  13. Store the mower in a place where it won’t get damaged and rodents will not move into it.

Riding Lawn Mower Winter Storage

The riding lawn mower is an entirely more complicated machine so storing them for winter is a lot more time consuming. To get it ready for next year and store it, perform the following;

  1. Add fuel stabilizer to the gas tank.
  2. Run the mower for 10 minutes to get the engine warm.
  3. Change the oil and filter
  4. Change the air filter and sparkplugs.
  5. Change the fuel filter.
  6. Remove the blades and sharpen them and scrape the deck. Re-install the blades.
  7. Blow off the engine, the transmission and deck with compressed air.
  8. Lubricate cables and linkages with silicone spray. Grease the front wheels, steering and deck spindles and any other grease fittings that are on your machine.
  9. Check for any damage or missing parts and order them or bring the mower to your lawn mower mechanic.
  10. Check the drive and deck belts for wear and replace if necessary. If you see wear such as cracks, a shiny appearance or the belt sitting deep in the pulley, it means it has worn out.
  11. Inflate the tires to their proper pressures. Normally 15psi in the front and 10 in the rear.
  12. Clean the battery terminals. Put your battery on the trickle charger. If you don’t have one you can remove the battery and recharge it and keep it in a warm place and re-install in the spring.
  13. Check the transmission fluid if your mower has an external tank.
  14. Store the mower in a place where it won’t get damaged and rodents will not move into it.

That covers all the major things you need to do to store your lawn mower for the winter. Walk-behinds and Zero Turn lawn mowers are fairly close to riding lawn mowers but the tire pressures are normally what the operator likes in terms of how it rides.

Next spring you will be ready to go and your mower won’t be sitting in a lawn mower repair shop waiting until they get their backlog of machines done to finally get to yours.

For lawn mower repair shops that can help you store your lawn mower, check our Locations page.

Riding Lawn Mower Repair

Toro Riding Lawn Mower Repair Bakersfield CA

Is your Toro rider experiencing some problems that are making it not usable or it barely does what it should? Did you have the spring tune-up performed or are in need of that service before a busy year of cutting the lawn?

Let’s face it. Lawn mowers do breakdown from time to time and need repaired. They normally fall into different categories of problems and those are fuel, ignition, electrical, chassis, deck or transmission systems. It is the fuel and ignition systems that give us the most trouble in a Toro riding lawn mower followed by deck and drive belt issues. The electrical and chassis don’t have a lot of problems that plague them.

We commonly repair carburetors that have plugged up jets that prevent fuel from getting into them. Fuel becomes stale over the winter and then it separates into various chemicals and gels up. Fuel stabilizer is one product that will help prevent this issue. It keeps the fuel in suspension and doesn’t let the chemicals separate.

Other things happen as belts wear out or break and deck pulleys, spindles and blades wear out as well. No matter what problem you are experiencing, we can help get your Toro riding lawn mower running once again.

Call us for all your Toro Riding Lawn Mower Repair Needs in Bakersfield CA.

 

 

Riding Lawn Mower Repair

John Deere Riding Lawn Mower Repair Bakersfield CA

John Deere is one of the most popular brands of riding lawn mowers in America. Their large popularity of agricultural equipment has made the brand transcend into lawn equipment with ease. There are John Deere riding lawn mowers of every size to fit every yard imaginable. Some are very small to accommodate going through narrow gates while others are cutting 5 feet wide swaths to cut a lot of grass in the shortest possible time.

John Deere lawn mowers break down just like any other brand and when they do, our Bakersfield California lawn mower repair shop is there to help. From tune-ups to teardowns, let us check out your machine and see what the problem is and repair it as quickly as possible.

Our shop specializes in John Deere riding lawn mowers and we are eager to help get your lawn mower back in great running condition once again.

When you need expert lawn mower repair, give us a call and let us sort out all of your issues.

Call us for all your  John Deere Riding Lawn Mower Repair in Bakersfield CA.

 

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

How To Start a Small Engine Repair Business

Did you ever just want to earn some extra money working on small engines and provide a little more security for yourself or your family? Or are you tired of working for someone else and being the slave to their business for 40 or more hours a week making them a lot of money while you just get by? And if you don’t perform well, they can just fire you and hire another person to take your place.

With the added security that a small engine repair business brings to you, it can be something that you start out of your garage and working at a couple hours a night and on weekends. As your business grows, it could become large enough to pay your bills and let you get away from that nagging 9-5 job that you hate going to each day.

In my case it was different. I had sold a business of 20 years and suddenly had nothing to do. I am not one to sit around and do nothing so I decided to start doing small engine repair. My background had some mechanic experience in it but not any small engine repair such as lawn mowers and generators both of which are my two most popular machines to work on in my state.

So needless to say I had a big learning curve staring me in the face and I needed to get up to speed on everything as quick as I could. My business background helped immediately with the operations, marketing and sales sides of things and this is by far the most important part of the business. Get your copy at How To Start a Small Engine Repair Business.

You most likely have some mechanical ability and are handy at fixing things so you have that part covered. What you cannot fix, there are enough YouTube videos, books and repair forums to help get you that knowledge to figure just about any problem out. But running the small engine repair business and making money from it are the most important skills you will need to know.

My book brings all that to the table. From initially setting your business structure up, insurance, licenses, education and training, marketing, sales, tools, equipment and parts, shop setup to  accounting and taxes, we have it covered. Plus, when you purchase the book, I will give you a FREE 6-Month listing on my National Referral List at Lawn Mower Repair Service.

Now it don’t get any better than that. A book that teaches you how to make money in the small engine repair business and a website that gets your small engine repair business out there quickly! You can buy all the tools in the world, but if you don’t invest in the knowledge to get your business up and running, those tools will just sit there in the toolbox. Believe me, this will be the best $20 bucks you will spend in your small engine repair business. Heck, get the Kindle version for $10 and I know you are the savvy money saving small engine business owner you need to be. Get your copy at How To Start a Small Engine Repair Business.

With the right skills and knowledge, you can make it happen. Don’t let fear hold you back from achieving your dreams of working in this really cool business. Personally, I love it! I don’t have the drama of co-workers, the pain in the head boss or people hovering over me while I work. I control my own destiny and so can you!

small-engine-repair-front-book-cover
Get your copy on Amazon today!

 

Riding Lawn Mower Repair

Husqvarna Riding Lawn Mower Repair Bakersfield CA

For over 400 years the Husqvarna brand has been making great machines for many different tasks around the yard. With their entry into the riding lawn mower market, it has given them a product that manages customers yards well. Their riding lawn mowers are of good quality and design that will last for many years.

These riding lawn mowers will last for a long time if the regular maintenance is performed and they are kept clean. A dirty lawn mower that is covered in grass debris will cause it to run hotter and can damage this air cooled engine. The grass will build up in the cooling fins and will not allow the air to flow through them and cool down the engine.

When you do experience a problem with your riding lawn mower, our shop is ready to help resolve the issue you are having. From carburetors to electrical systems, we can work on those and everything in between.

When you need expert Husqvarna riding lawn mower repair, give us a call and let us take care of the rest.

Husqvarna Riding Lawn Mower Repair in Bakersfield CA.

 

Riding Lawn Mower Repair

Cub Cadet Riding Lawn Mower Repair Bakersfield CA

We are your local Bakersfield California Cub Cadet riding lawn mower repair shop. Our shop can help with all your lawn mower repair and maintenance needs. From the small riders to the largest, we are here to take care of all the maintenance that needs performed such as oil and fluid changes, air and fuel filter changes, blade sharpening, tire maintenance and making sure the machine is greased in the steering and deck spindles.

If you have other problems such as the lawn mower will not start, we can help with that too. Many of today’s lawn mower problems are caused by the fuel going bad over time and gelling up in the carburetor. Valves can also come out of adjustment and cause problems with hard starting or not starting at all.

The first thing we want to do is diagnose the lawn mower to ensure that it performs as it should. Then we can troubleshoot the problem and get it running as it should once again by changing parts or adjusting the ones that require it.

When you need Cub Cadet Riding Lawn Mower Repair in Bakersfield CA, call our shop or bring it by today!

Riding Lawn Mower Repair

Craftsman Riding Lawn Mower Repair Bakersfield CA

You have a great lawn mower in your Craftsman and it should give you many years of dependable service. All it takes is taking good care of your machine and doing the recommended maintenance as scheduled. Oil and fluid changes are critical to your mower lasting a long time and performing the best it can. You are in charge of when to bring it so it is up to you to keep your service schedule and have the maintenance done when needed.

Our shop can perform all your preventive maintenance and any other repairs that your mower may need. Whether you have a need for a tune-up or your mower will not start, we can take care of those issues as well as electrical, drive systems, deck and belt issues as well as sharpen the blades.

Today’s fuels have ethanol in them and this creates many problems with carburetors. Stale fuel can plug up carburetor jets and prevent fuel from getting into the engine. Surging of the engine results and poor performance ensues.

So when you need expert Craftsman Riding Lawn Mower Repair in Bakersfield CA, call us or bring it by today!

Riding Lawn Mower Repair

Troy-Bilt Riding Lawn Mower Repair Anaheim CA

Whether you need a tune-up or a tear down or just your preventive maintenance performed, we are here to help. Your lawn mower will be professionally taken care of and repaired so that it will run and cut well. A good running lawn mower is easier on the engine and will not overheat. As long as you are doing your part in keeping the engine clean as well as the deck and transmission areas, you should have fewer breakdowns to worry about.

When you need expert Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower repair, call our shop and let us check out your lawn mower and give it the maintenance or repairs that are needed. Our shop works on all models of Troy-Bilt lawn mowers and has the tools, training, knowledge and parts to get yours running quickly. We understand the hassle of waiting weeks to get your lawn mower back and will work hard to troubleshoot it and get it back in your care soon. Your lawn mower is a very important machine that keeps your yard looking healthy and maintained. By taking great care of it, your lawn mower will run well for a long time to come.

Our Anaheim CA riding lawn mower repair shop is here to help with all your lawn mower problems and will fix yours as quickly as possible.

With the right mix of preventive maintenance and care, your Troy-Bilt lawn mower will last for many years to come.

Call our shop for all your Troy-Bilt Riding Lawn Mower Repair in Anaheim CA.