Category: Lawn Mower Repair Tips

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

How To Choose a Lawn Mower Mechanic Repair Shop

Today you may have a lot of options to choose from or maybe only a couple in your area if your live in a rural area. Larger cities have dealerships both big and small, big box stores such as Home Depot and Lowes and small independent lawn mower repair shops.

But which one should you choose to get the best lawn mower repair service in your area?

Experience:

We all seem to hold the “dealerships” in this category of mythical creatures (I used to) that have the best tools, best training, best test equipment, best parts and best warranty around. Well, that may be partially true, but the dealership is only as good as the lawn mower repair technicians and support staff working there. Good experienced technicians go where the money and working conditions are the best and that is not always at a “dealership”.

First let me say that size does not indicate quality service. I own a small independent lawn mower repair shop and clients will bring me lawn mowers that the large “dealerships” cannot seem to figure out. Now this article is not about bashing the dealerships, it is about arming you with information about choosing between the different lawn mower repair shop options.

One thing about most dealerships is that they do not service equipment brands that they don’t sell. So if you take your Troy-Bilt lawn mower to a John Deere dealer, most likely they won’t touch it.

Reviews:

Second in today’s world we can very easily check out a company’s reputation online. Find their Facebook page and look at those reviews. Check out their Google reviews or Yelp reviews. Look at as many sources of information as possible to come up with a good consensus of the local shops.

Remember, people are always willing to complain about a company when they don’t get it quite right, but not a lot of people will give a review when the service is well done.

Since reviews can also be fake, ask your friends for referrals and see what names they provide you. You know these people personally so a referral from them comes with more weight behind it.

Certifications & Training:

Another thing to review is their website. See if they list their certifications such as “Briggs and Stratton Master Service Technician” or “Kohler Expert Service Technician”.  If they have any training and certifications, that adds another plus in the “pro” column to consider.

Labor Costs:

Labor rates can be all over the map. The dealerships and large shops have to charge higher labor rates to cover their large overhead in running those businesses. It is not uncommon for them to be north of $100 an hour for their repair services. The smaller shops have less overhead and can charge less for their services. Be wary of the shop that charges extremely low rates. Like anything else in this world, you get what you pay for.

Warranty:

This can be a confusing one for customers. For example, you buy your Husqvarna self-propelled lawn mower from Home Depot and in one month it breaks. Well, your Home Depot store most likely isn’t going to fix it in-house. They have a sub-contractor that picks up their mowers when they get enough of them that are broke and then perform the repair work at their location. These companies may be coming from out of state to pick up those mowers and you may wait weeks or months to get yours back.

The dealership can perform the warranty work IF you bought your mower from them. Some dealerships can be picky and not want to do warranty work if you bought your mower from a competitor across town or a big box store.

The small independent shops may be representing many different brands of engines and mowers. They could be able to take care of your warranty on your Briggs and Stratton engine even though it is in a John Deere riding lawn mower.

When you think of a lawn mower, it is made up of 3 basic components; the engine, transmission and chassis. Let’s use our John Deere riding lawn mower that you bought from Home Depot for example. If it is an L110, most likely it was actually made my MTD. MTD is a large mower manufacturer that private labels lawn mowers for 50 or so different brands including Cub Cadet and Troy-Bilt.

Your John Deere L110 could have a Briggs and Stratton engine, a Hydro-Gear transmission and the chassis made by MTD. In this case, any shop can work on it that is set up with any one of those 3 companies for their warranty work.

Wait Times:

Bigger shops with thousands of clients can be very busy during the mowing season. Your wait time could be weeks to months in some cases. If your mower manufacturer is not doing a great job of keeping parts on hand, the wait could be longer. This means you will either have to hire a lawn service or borrow a mower from someone.

Smaller shops can be busy but have to more effectively manage their floor space and have more incentive to get work turned around quickly.

By doing your research and getting as much information about the potential lawn mower shop you are going to do business with, you will be making a more informed buying decision.

The grass continues to grow and the faster you can get your lawn mower back that has been repaired right the first time, the more cost and time effective it will be for you.

 

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

Lawn Mower Will Not Start Troubleshooting

Your lawn mower can be a real pain at times when it won’t start or will run for only a few seconds. You pull it out, turn the key or pull the starter rope and nothing. Well, instead of breaking out the old “sledgehammer”, let’s take a look at some things you can do to try and get that lawn mower back up and running quickly.

If you have a self-propelled lawn mower or push mower, the first thing you want to do is check for spark and fuel. Start off by removing the spark plug and see if there is any fuel on the end of the plug. Next, attach a spark tester to it. If you don’t have a spark tester, you can leave the spark plug attached to the spark plug wire and lay the spark plug on the metal part of the engine and either video tape the spark or use a mirror in front of the lawn mower to help visually see any spark.

If you have spark and are not getting any fuel, then a carburetor problem is the likely culprit. If you have no spark but are getting fuel, then your ignition magneto is bad or something is grounding out the kill wire. The kill wire is the black wire that connects to the spade connector on the ignition magneto and is routed to the kill switch that is activated when you release the safety bail.

If your lawn mower has sat over the winter, the fuel is bad and will need to be drained and new fuel put in the tank. The carburetor may also be gummed up by that old fuel so it may need cleaned as well.

Riding lawn mowers are basically the same to troubleshoot. But with a riding lawn mower, be sure that the battery is completely charged and that the main fuse is good and not blown. If you turn the key over and nothing happens, you either have a battery issue, a bad key switch or wiring, a starter solenoid that is bad, a bad negative cable ground or a safety switch that is not working.

If your lawn mower will still not start, a VERY SMALL amount of starting fluid can be sprayed into the carburetor venturi after the air filter has been removed. If the engine does fire, then you know for sure that you have a fuel problem and there is none going through the ports in the carburetor.

Just remember, an internal combustion engine needs fuel/air mixture, spark and compression to work properly. If you have all of those and the engine timing is correct (you didn’t hit something with the lawn mower blade on push and self-propelleds), your engine should run.

Hopefully this gets you pointed in the right direction to get your lawn mower will not start troubleshooting issue resolved quickly.

 

 

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

How To Start a 4-Cycle Small Engine When it is Cold

When the weather dips below freezing, most 4-Cycle small engines are much harder to start. Ignition is much more difficult when fuel is cold and the natural vapors are not as expansive as when fuel is warm. Cylinder pressures are lower because the oil does not seal the cylinder well when it is cold. The piston rings contract on the pistons and don’t expand until they begin to heat up.

Here are some tips that will help make starting your 4-Cycle engine easier in extreme cold weather.

  1. If you have a way to warm the engine such as with an electric heater, warm it for 30 minutes prior to starting.
  2. An oil dipstick heater or block heater is another great way to warm the engine prior to starting.
  3. Spray a small amount of starter fluid into the intake after the air filter has been removed and keep the choke closed for a little longer while the engine warms up.
  4. Make sure to have the correct engine oil during cold times of the year. 10W30 is good to 0 degrees and anything colder than that requires 5W30 or a good grade full synthetic.
  5. Be sure that you are using the choke in the full on position. The choke allows more fuel into the carburetor to enrichen the mixture for cold starting.

By heating up the engine and using a small shot of starting fluid, your engine should start fairly easily in even the most extreme weather conditions.

 

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

My Lawn Mower Dies After Starting

This is one of the most common things that happens to a lawn mower. You pull the rope or turn the key and it starts and then dies quickly. It may run for a few seconds or less than a minute and then it dies as if you flipped a switch.

It almost always turns out to be a fuel problem that is causing this issue or more specifically, not getting enough fuel.

If your lawn mower dies after starting, the first thing you want to do is remove the gas cap and listen for a vacuum type sound. Kind of like when you pull the tab on a can of pringles.  If you hear that vacuum sucking sound, the gas cap vent is not working and it needs to be replaced.

If the gas cap is not the problem, you could have stale fuel or water in the fuel. A fuel sample should be taken from the fuel line going to the carburetor. Pinch off the fuel line and then disconnect it from the carburetor. Then allow fuel to flow into a small glass jar and if you see water collecting or the fuel is cloudy, it is bad.

If the fuel is good, then the problem most likely is in the carburetor and it will need to be removed and thoroughly cleaned. After cleaning the carburetor, re-install it and then start the lawn mower.

If it runs better but is now surging up and down, then the carburetor still requires cleaning and pay particular attention to the main and idle jets. Also be sure that your carburetor gaskets are good and that the bolts are tight holding the carburetor on.

Other things can cause your lawn mower to start and then die, but in most cases the fuel is the problem and is a problem that can be solved.

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!

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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.

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!

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Lawn Mower Repair Tips

How to Advertise My Lawn Mower Repair Business

Advertising is one of the most important things we can do in our lawn mower repair business. Sure, you may be the greatest repair technician that ever walked the planet, but if your phone does not ring or people stop by your shop, you are essentially dead in the water.

In today’s marketplace, the Yellow Pages is essentially dead. People throw them away as fast as they receive them. So it is not wise to spend your money there.

Think of how you would search for a company to work on your lawn mower. You would most likely get on your phone or computer and open Google and then search for what you are looking for right? Of course you would and your clients are no different.

So if you are not on the web today, you are missing out on that one big tool in your toolbox that will help launch your business. Getting on the web is relatively easy, but getting noticed and on the first couple of pages is the hard part. Lots of companies build websites and promise to get you business, but they are not good at getting you the traffic to your site that you need.

If you already have a website that is great! If you are not coming up in the search engines, not so great.

That is where we come in. With our National Website Lawn-Mower-Repair-Service.com, we attract lots of traffic to our site and get people to find you via our locations page and specific pages that are built for your area. Our website has thousands of pages and they all help in getting us the traffic we need to generate business for you.

Even better is our 6-month FREE Trial! We list your business and contact information and get you on the web quickly. Advertising your lawn mower repair business is a very important part of your overall business strategy and it must be done correctly to ensure a steady stream of clients into your shop.

To list your business, follow this link to our Get Listed page for your no-obligation FREE Trial.

If you would like more information about how to get a lawn mower business started and making money, we also have a book that is just right for you. How to Start and Make Money in A Small Engine Business is available on Amazon and other major book sellers. You can obtain your copy by following this link How to Advertise My Lawn Mower Repair Business.

A lawn mower repair business is a lot of fun and with the right advertising and marketing, you will be on your way to making money and enjoying this unique business!

 

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

How To Start a Lawn Mower Repair Shop

Starting your own lawn mower repair shop can be easy with the right plan to follow. Just like you are taking a trip and you follow a map on your GPS, having the right map laid out in front of you will help you speed up the process and help avoid costly mistakes along the way.

One of the first things you should do is find a name that suits your business well. You could use your own name such as Joe’s Lawn Mower Repair or chose one for your city like Durham Lawn Mower Repair. The latter name lends more to you work the Durham NC area and it will help with your positioning on the web when you have a website and other marketing up.

Now you must get a business license, purchase insurance, find suppliers, get tools and a place to work out of and then get the phone to ringing so you will have work coming in the door.

You probably have some mechanical ability or have went to a repair school such as Penn Foster  to learn more about this chosen field. Education and training are vital to your success and you should get as much as possible!

Those are just a few of the things you will need to get your lawn mower repair shop off the ground. But back to that map I mentioned a little while ago. This map will help you get moving in the right direction and jumpstart your business. I saw there was a need for those that wanted to ramp up things faster and decided to write a book for those that wanted to get their lawn mower repair shop or small engine business going quickly and take it to the next level.

When you get a copy of How to Start and Make Money in The Small Engine Repair Business, you need to read it from cover to cover and implement the techniques in it. It will take you from opening your doors to how to make money in this business and show you many shortcuts along the way.

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Get your copy on Amazon today!

Running a business is full of pitfalls just waiting for you to stumble into them. By arming yourself with the right knowledge and information, you will know exactly how to start a lawn mower repair shop in your area.

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

My Lawn Mower Dies After Starting

This is one of the most common problems you can have in the early spring when you pull out the lawn mower for the first time. The mower will run for a few seconds and then it will die as if you shut off a switch.

Most of the time this is caused by not using a fuel stabilizer like Ethanol Shield  or Stabil . When your gasoline or diesel fuel is stabilized, it prevents the fuel from phase separating into different parts and then drying up while inside of a carburetor or fuel injected mower. Once dried up, they plug up those vital ports that allow the engine to continue to run. Just enough fuel will enter the engine to start but the full throttle it needs to run will happen because the engine is starving for fuel.

The carburetor will need disassembled to clean all the ports properly. In some cases you can remove the float bowl screw at the bottom of the bowl and clean out the main jet that is in that screw. On Chinese and Japanese lawn mower engines, the idle jet must be cleaned in addition to the main jet and emulsion tube which is inside the fuel tower that runs vertically through the carburetor.  The idle jet is located inside a plastic plug that is held in place by the idle speed control screw that is also plastic. The idle jet has a very small port size so use something like one strand of wire from a small electrical wire.

Use carburetor cleaner to spray out all the ports and then blow them out with low pressure compressed air. Re-assemble the carburetor and install and test to see if it works as it should. It is runs but surges, you still have a blockage somewhere in the carburetor that will need to be cleaned. Repeat the process until you find that port that is blocked. You could also have an air leak and may not have the bolts that hold the carburetor tight enough.

Make sure you have fresh fuel in the engine as well because stale fuel will not light off very well or produce the power you need to keep the engine running. By cleaning your carburetor, you will fix the problem of my lawn mower dies after starting.