Lawn Mowers Care: Discover 7 Steps To Caring For Your Lawn Mower!
Lawn Mowers Care is as important as caring for your family car. Caring for your lawn mower is a big step to a greener lawn. Take care of your push lawn mower or riding lawn mower and it will take care of you. Here are the 7 steps to caring …for your lawn mower and lawn mower parts.
• Before you start the season you should check your spark plug. Take it out and clean the tip with a small wire brush or with some emery cloth. You can also check the gap and reset it if needed. The gap setting can be found in the specifications section of your owner’s manual. Replace the spark plug(s) about every 2 years or so.
• Change the engine oil before the start of the season as well. You can fine the proper oil specifications in the owner’s manual or just use SAE 30 engine oil if you are not sure. Be sure to dispose of the oil properly.
• Now check the air filter. You should clean it before the season and it’s a good idea to check it after a few months of mowing. When it gets hard to clean or if the filter starts to fall apart when you clean it you need to replace the air filter with a new one.
• The gas is also very important to engine performance. Try to avoid buying a season’s worth of gas and storing it in the garage or shed. Gas that sits around for more than about a month can pick up moisture and if that gets into your gas tank it can cause problems with your carburetor and in turn cause poor engine performance.
• Clean the mower deck top & bottom. Before you start this you want to take a few safety precautions. Whenever you are working around the blade you need to make sure there is no way the engine can turn over (start). If you need to you can remove the wire from the spark plug. Now take a scraper to the heavy build up of grass under the deck and then wash everything with the hose.
• While you are under the deck you can check the blade(s) for sharpness. If the blade(s) need to be sharpened make sure to remove them from the mower first (never sharpen mower blades on the mower). There are a few different ways to sharpen the blades and the easiest is with a file. You can also use a grinding wheel or a belt sander with the correct belt grit type. When you are done with the sharpening and before you put it back on the mower make sure the blade is balanced. An out of balanced blade with harm the engine and give you an uneven cut. To balance the blade you can tie a string to the middle of a steel rod, then put the string through the hole so that the blade sits on the rod. The blade should stay horizontal, if it leans in one direction that means the low side is heavy and needs to have more taken off of that side.
• Last thing to do and this should be done at the beginning of the season and maybe a few times during the season. Do a visual check of the engine and belts. Clean any oil/grease build ups you see in and around the engine. When you check the belts you want to look for any wear, cracks, splitting or fraying. Don’t take chances with the belts, it’s better to replace them and be safe.
Tags: 
Loading ...