Making woohoo

[greatbear]

Wired has a rather neat, one-page article regarding sexual orientation and the new game The Sims 2, as well as some other games. Good read.

In other news, I've had 6 Gmail invitations for a while. If anyone is interested, let me know.

The word of the day is


Apologies to danthered, but Tecumseh carburetors, despite their beautiful simplicity, suck. I tried ordering a new one online through Sears' usually comprehensive online parts service, but for this particular mower, to get the carb you have to buy it with the engine attached. Ah well, off to hassle my local small engine parts suppliers ("Oh, that's a Sears mower, we dont have any info on their stuff, you gotta get parts from them." "Just give me a carb that will fit that new mower you have over there, and I'll make it work." Parts counter guys often can't look beyond their parts catalogs and numbers). The life of a gearhead is often tragic.

Comments

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Piffle. PIFFLE, I say! Piffle to all of it. (Yeah, those carburetors suck—that's their job! It's when they stop sucking that there's a problem...)

All the 134. numbers Sears used for years to disguise their power equipment's engines' origins are fully crossreferenced to Tecumseh engine model numbers in the back of the Tecumseh master parts manual. But, that's irrelevant. The carburetor "fits and works" interchange on virtually any Tecumseh vertical-shaft mower engine of between 3 and 6 horsepower is "Anything made between 1965 and 2004". You can buy 'em for less than a pizza all day on Ebay. Here. Or here, ever mow in cold weather? This one's got a primer and a choke. Or here, this one's got the intake manifold included.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd come through. This carb must be suffering from casting inclusions, machining debris in a hidden void or something, because I end up with aluminum bits and shavings in the passages that should not be coming from any other source. This has been an issue (remarkably enough - NOT) right after the warranty expired. ABout every other year or so, the damn thing loses it's ability to idle or run slower than full speed, and I go through the same exercise. Piffle, with a big helping of pish tosh.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Well, the whole reason for those silly 143. numbers in the first place is that Sears has for decades bought engines that Tecumseh didn't want their name on in the marketplace.

I'll eat piffles all day. Sorry, but I'm not into pish or tosh. (What color hanky are those?)

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

Paisley and houndstooth checks and pinstripes. One hanky with both. Fashion faux pas to the max.

This particular engine is not bad, any problems I ever had with it were from the damn carb. Oh, and just recently the pull cord came apart and smacked me in the arm. That does not count. I tend to pull-start engines so forcefully by nature faster than they idle.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

For awhile in the '60s and '70s, Tecumseh deviated from their float-carb norm and optionally installed diaphragm-style carburetors on LAV engines. Some really ingenious and good designs; they even figured out how to put their trademark primer on them.

As far as your tendency to destroy recoil starters, I suggest what's needed is an impulse (wind-up, snap) starter.

*crank-crank-crank-wind-wind-wind-wind-wind*

*flickSNAP*POOFaPOOFaPOOFaPOOFaPOOFaPOOFaPUTTPUTTaPUTTPUTTPUTTVROOOM!*