So what did you do with your truck today?

[IDIBRONCO]

I'm glad that this is my truck and I don't need that mirror. Everyone else can take a flying leap if they don't like it!

 

[IDIBRONCO]

This morning I went collecting. A guy who lives close by called my yesterday and asked if I wanted an old mower for free. I said yes right away. I walked over to his house and looked at it. It's an old Montgomery Wards mower and not one of their last ones going by the looks. It does have a 18HP Briggs. Maybe it will run, maybe not. Then he said that I could have his battery charger. He wasn't sure if it worked or not. I drug it home last night. He even let me use his trailer to haul the mower on. There's more stuff in two storage sheds behind his neighbor's house. Due to the rain yesterday, we'll get to that later. Maybe I'll find treasures, maybe it'll be stuff to go on my next scrap metal load. Either way, free stuff is cool!

 

[Jesus Freak]

This morning I went collecting. A guy who lives close by called my yesterday and asked if I wanted an old mower for free. I said yes right away. I walked over to his house and looked at it. It's an old Montgomery Wards mower and not one of their last ones going by the looks. It does have a 18HP Briggs. Maybe it will run, maybe not. Then he said that I could have his battery charger. He wasn't sure if it worked or not. I drug it home last night. He even let me use his trailer to haul the mower on. There's more stuff in two storage sheds behind his neighbor's house. Due to the rain yesterday, we'll get to that later. Maybe I'll find treasures, maybe it'll be stuff to go on my next scrap metal load. Either way, free stuff is cool!

That's a pretty cool mower....... and that battery charger is pretty sweet too.......

 

[IDIBRONCO]

I'm going to take them over to my garage in a little bit. I have jumper cables and ether waiting for the mower. If it does run, I'll have to find a gas cap for it. It has one with a built in gauge and, naturally, the plastic is missing from the outside. I guess that they are pretty easy and cheap to find new.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

I couldn't try to start the mower after all. There's a wire on the positive battery post, but it's not big enough to be a battery cable. The ground for the negative cable is so rusty that I doubt anything would have happened even if there had been a positive cable. On the plus side, I hooked up the battery charger to a battery. The voltmeter needle moved as soon as I hooked up the cables. When I turned it on the 20 amp setting, the ammeter needle jumped to about 18-19 amps, so it looks like that works. I just need to find a discharged battery to try it on. When we loaded the mower this morning, the guy asked me if I had someone to help unload it and I said yes. Soichiro Honda did amazing work at unloading the mower. After I unloaded the rider and my push mower, I loaded up my weed killing apparatus before I came home so I can start on the weeds in the morning. Due to my difficulty breathing, the 97% humidity this morning almost did me in. I had to rest for most of the morning so I just headed over to the garage and made some lunch before I did anything else. Maybe tomorrow morning, I won't try to load any flat tired mowers and can get more done. I threw in a closer picture of the mower for Jesus Freak's viewing pleasure.

 

[Jesus Freak]

I threw in a closer picture of the mower for Jesus Freak's viewing pleasure.

Thank you..... but its not worth saving as a mower or even a tractor for around the yard.......should be a really good L head 2 cyl Briggs engine though...... it has one of the original "vari-drive" transmissions..... its the tranny that they still use on mowers with "Troy bilt" or the cheapest "cub cadet".... if its not a gear on gear transmission or a hydrostat..... it ain't worth having..... it looks neat.....but so do some dodges, that doesn't mean they're worth owning.... now the Big Red is worth a look....oh yeah!

 

[VanGo]

Heard the engine run for the first time!

 

[habaneropep2019]

Did a compression test today. Gut told me I ought to do that before I put a lot of time into injectors and pump. Guess my intuition was correct that something else was amiss besides the one injector.

7 - 400
5 - 375
3 - 390
1 - 380

8 - 390
6 - 290
4 - 250
2 - 355

Given that it was low on coolant when I got it, I’ve observed no coolant leaks, and compression is low on two adjacent cylinders, I’m inclined to believe it needs a headgasket on the 2-4-6-8 bank.

Ugh. I was so hoping I would get lucky and be able to slap new injectors in and get it running right away

 

[IDIBRONCO]

Given that it was low on coolant when I got it, I’ve observed no coolant leaks, and compression is low on two adjacent cylinders, I’m inclined to believe it needs a headgasket on the 2-4-6-8 bank.

Maybe. Does it push coolant out of the overflow while running? Even with the "low" compression readings of 290 and 250, that's still WAY more pressure than our cooling systems can make. 250 PSI overpowers 13-16 PSI every time so the coolant shouldn't be pushing into those cylinders while the engine is running even if that head gasket is bad. The low coolant level and the low compression readings might not be related.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

but its not worth saving as a mower or even a tractor for around the yard.....

it has one of the original "vari-drive" transmissions..... its the tranny that they still use on mowers with "Troy bilt" or the cheapest "cub cadet".... if its not a gear on gear transmission or a hydrostat..... it ain't worth having.....

Thanks for the advice.

it looks neat.....but so do some dodges, that doesn't mean they're worth owning.

I agree on both accounts. The exception would be the 1952 Dodge Business coupe that a high school friend used to have. It was in great shape, ran great (once you got the old battery charged up), rode pretty nicely (for a 1952 car), and that fluid drive transmission was cool. I would have owned that Dodge.

 

[habaneropep2019]

Maybe. Does it push coolant out of the overflow while running? Even with the "low" compression readings of 290 and 250, that's still WAY more pressure than our cooling systems can make. 250 PSI overpowers 13-16 PSI every time so the coolant shouldn't be pushing into those cylinders while the engine is running even if that head gasket is bad. The low coolant level and the low compression readings might not be related.

I had it running long enough to get the engine to warm to touch, and didn’t notice it pushing coolant out of the overflow.

I’m thinking next step might be pulling the valve cover off just to see if anything is amiss, and doing a leakage test.

 

[IDIBRONCO]

250 PSI would push coolant out pretty quickly.

 

[89Laredo]

A couple weeks ago actually. Cleaned it out and dragged it from its grave.
This is a really stupid idea....