Poorly running lawn mower: let's see if these additives really work

[Threxx]

OK so I have a really cheap 8 year old lawn mower. It's something like 4.5 horsepower, 4-stroke. It has slowly but surely over the years gotten worse and worse about stalling out. Now it just stalls out on its own about every 45 seconds once it warms up.

I already went and bought a new Honda (HRX) mower, so this isn't really a serious salvage attempt, but rather just having some fun.

My car is not that old, and was running great even before the additives, so I can't really tell any appreciable differences. So here's the challenge... I'm going to run some calculations to see how much BG 44K or techron or fuel power or whatever I should add to the gas, and how much auto rx I should add to the oil to get the equivalent to adding it to a car.

Worst case scenario is it kills my mower, which is perfectly fine because it only cost around 150 bucks 8 years ago, and so I was about to give it to the garbage man anyhow until I thought of this little experiment.

Any suggestions?

 

[427Z06]

Have you done any maintenance on it like: air filter, spark plug, clean the screen in the fuel tank, etc?

 

[MolaKule]

Determine any prexisting problems and fix them before you run the adds and blame the fuel adds for non-performance.

I.E., you have to reduce the number of variables when testing in order to determine cause-effect relations.

 

[Threxx]

Regular maintenance has not been done in a little while, but everything checked out a year ago, and whether or not I changed plugs/air filter/screen/etc never really helped it run any better in the past, so I don't think those are variables now, either.

Anyone know if I can run induction system cleaner on this thing? Just feed it straight into the air intake? Or do lawnmowers actually have some sort of applicable vacuum hose?

 

[Jelly]

Hey...right up my alley!

I just did this to an old B&S push-mower several months ago:

New spark plug and air filter
Add a heavy-dose of my favorite OTC fuel-cleaner, Gumout Regane.
Fill with fresh 87.
Run for a minute, then change oil with 15w40 HDEO.

Although it did take quite awhile for things to approve, the mower actually runs surprisingly good now! If I'd just take the time to sharpen the blade, it'd actual cut the grass...

[ October 13, 2004, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: Jelly ]

 

[mkosem]

I actually auto-rx'd a lawn mower engine recently. I got very good results. The enging ie running strong and smooth now. I've got FP and LC in it now as well(added when I switched it to Delvac1300S the other day). Can't wait to see how it works.

--Matt

 

[JohnBrowning]

Well, I have already tried a few things. I have a 17HP Craftsman Garden Tractor. I added 2 onces of Lube Control and 2 onces of Lucas Upper Cylinder Lube to it's fuel tank. I then added 4 onces of Lube Control to the oil.

While mulching leaves it ran like a top. No smokeing or anything. Power output was fine. I was testing this to see if it was going to cause me any grief in my cars.

I then tested this combination in the wifes buick. A 50/50 blend of UCL and LC. I over treated the fuel with 8 onces of this mixture. Her Buick runs better then ever.

I did this to see if LC could be used in the fuel system with out any harm. I was running low on UCL and it seemed like a good way to extend it since I had a gallon of LC just laying around.

I have also added this to my Camry at a rate of 4 onces per tankful with no obvious ill effects in performance. I have no idea what it could be doing to bearing shells but I only made up 32 onces of the stuff and am trying it on just about everything that burns fuel. Notice I went with a very conservative amount on the Camry. The higher over treatment was done on older lower cost items before moveing on to anything important.

 

[GT Mike]

I threw some FP in an old '74 model generator with a 7 HP B&S engine on it. This thing has always started on the first pull as long as I've known, but running some FP thru it seemed to make that nasty familair "Briggs exhaust" smell go away considerably.
Went and bought 5 gallons of gas for the lawn mower and snowblower and dumped 2 oz. of FP into it. We'll see how well it works at cleaning up the old Ariens ST 2+2's stinky old Tecumseh engine as well as keeping the plugs from fouling out on the 17 HP Kohler twin.