I removed the internal gear and put a picture of it and the worm gear on the tiller. I found a loose washer and bearing unit on the worm gear shaft.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Two culprits
I removed the internal gear and put a picture of it and the worm gear on the tiller. I found a loose washer and bearing unit on the worm gear shaft.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Tiller woes
The tiller won't till. I got it to do the reverse-till feature but before going far the engine conked out under the load. The engine sometimes will stop running after several seconds even after a load. I tried a belt to get the forward-till to work but, possibly because there wasn't enough tension, the machine just scraped the belt. It's time I changed the engine and fixed another idler pulley.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
My inherited tiller
In the middle of last month I received a tiller. It was free and my cousin was giving it away as he had sold his parents' house. I went to the house and my first thought was that he was giving up a beautiful pine-covered yard with pretty plants. The tiller sat under a washtub and other covering. Thus it wasn't all that rusty. No doubt my new baby would need work but I love bringing dead things back to life. His neighbor told me that the tiller was his family's and that my cousin's parents only used it once. We trotted it through the pine grove to my vehicle.
The first thing I did was read the model numbers and other data off the machine. Its model number defied a Google search and some of the model tag was missing. The original owner said it was a Wizard tiller. One forum poster said it was a True Value tiller; my uncle concurred. He had acquired a similar unit that was reengined. The small picture has a Wizard tiller of similar vintage.
The 5hp Briggs and Stratton 130202-0136-01 engine had a date code of 6610251 which meant it was made in Milwaukee on October 25, 1966. Likely the tiller was made at about the same time. Few plastic parts made up the tiller. It was solid. I took pictures and sprayed cleaner on the machine. The gear box received a flushing of its blackened lubricant and in went some 85W gear oil which slightly oozed from the leaking edges. I drained the crankcase and ran paint thinner through it. I took the spark plug wire off and cycled the engine. I poured in some oil which I later drained and refilled. The oil plug was stubborn and my pliers rounded it off so I now have a carriage bolt damming the oil.
I took off the metal tine cover and handle shield to allow me to paint the deck. I took the handles off. The once-chrome handles were covered in rust and white paint.
It took a week to paint the deck red (I could find no orange/red like the original finish). The gas tank came off and I removed the carburetor before sanding and priming it. The several coats of primer and paint didn't totally obscure all of the bare metal. One set of tines came off but the other tines were rusted on. I did the best I could to paint the deck.
The tiller would not generate a spark to power the machine. I at first used a voltmeter to ohm out the magneto. I didn't put it on 2KOhms but on a lower setting. This caused a false reading of a short so I ordered an electronic armature/ignition assembly. After thinking it was just a modified plain-jane magneto and hooking one of its wires to the condenser I finally found out that I didn't need to fix the points to go with the device. The reason it wouldn't fire after installing the assembly was a wide gap between it and the flywheel as well as not generating enough RPM while spinning the wheel by hand. It takes a high RPM to activate an electronic ignition. I tested the ignition by putting starter fluid in the spark plug hole and inserting the plug. It puffed to life for the first time in several years before the flammable ethers ran out.
The carburetor is a story in and of itself. I replaced the diaphragm and cleaned the device thoroughly but the engine ran only when cleaning fluid was sprayed into the air intake. I had ripped up the stuck valve seat and thought the seat was the problem. Last Friday I broke a plastic secondary intake hose. I finally got the brass seat out and replaced it and the needle assembly this Saturday night. This took several tank seals over the past few days. Rust was in the gas tank and twice I had to shake the tank after I put in rocks and cleaning fluid to scrape the muck away. I did not get the carburetor to work without fully choking it. Only full replacement of the carburetor will remedy this but for now it works.
I have to get a third belt for the tiller. The last two were too small. Finally it dawned on me to sever a washing machine belt and cut it to fit so I could find out exactly what I needed. The beast has a reverse feature but who tills backwards?
The first thing I did was read the model numbers and other data off the machine. Its model number defied a Google search and some of the model tag was missing. The original owner said it was a Wizard tiller. One forum poster said it was a True Value tiller; my uncle concurred. He had acquired a similar unit that was reengined. The small picture has a Wizard tiller of similar vintage.
The 5hp Briggs and Stratton 130202-0136-01 engine had a date code of 6610251 which meant it was made in Milwaukee on October 25, 1966. Likely the tiller was made at about the same time. Few plastic parts made up the tiller. It was solid. I took pictures and sprayed cleaner on the machine. The gear box received a flushing of its blackened lubricant and in went some 85W gear oil which slightly oozed from the leaking edges. I drained the crankcase and ran paint thinner through it. I took the spark plug wire off and cycled the engine. I poured in some oil which I later drained and refilled. The oil plug was stubborn and my pliers rounded it off so I now have a carriage bolt damming the oil.
I took off the metal tine cover and handle shield to allow me to paint the deck. I took the handles off. The once-chrome handles were covered in rust and white paint.
It took a week to paint the deck red (I could find no orange/red like the original finish). The gas tank came off and I removed the carburetor before sanding and priming it. The several coats of primer and paint didn't totally obscure all of the bare metal. One set of tines came off but the other tines were rusted on. I did the best I could to paint the deck.
The tiller would not generate a spark to power the machine. I at first used a voltmeter to ohm out the magneto. I didn't put it on 2KOhms but on a lower setting. This caused a false reading of a short so I ordered an electronic armature/ignition assembly. After thinking it was just a modified plain-jane magneto and hooking one of its wires to the condenser I finally found out that I didn't need to fix the points to go with the device. The reason it wouldn't fire after installing the assembly was a wide gap between it and the flywheel as well as not generating enough RPM while spinning the wheel by hand. It takes a high RPM to activate an electronic ignition. I tested the ignition by putting starter fluid in the spark plug hole and inserting the plug. It puffed to life for the first time in several years before the flammable ethers ran out.
The carburetor is a story in and of itself. I replaced the diaphragm and cleaned the device thoroughly but the engine ran only when cleaning fluid was sprayed into the air intake. I had ripped up the stuck valve seat and thought the seat was the problem. Last Friday I broke a plastic secondary intake hose. I finally got the brass seat out and replaced it and the needle assembly this Saturday night. This took several tank seals over the past few days. Rust was in the gas tank and twice I had to shake the tank after I put in rocks and cleaning fluid to scrape the muck away. I did not get the carburetor to work without fully choking it. Only full replacement of the carburetor will remedy this but for now it works.
I have to get a third belt for the tiller. The last two were too small. Finally it dawned on me to sever a washing machine belt and cut it to fit so I could find out exactly what I needed. The beast has a reverse feature but who tills backwards?
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