I've had a week's holiday and I think it's clear that my idea of a really good day off is quite different to most people's. The best day of my holiday was when my friend and I worked on an old lawnmower that he has acquired. It's a lovely Qualcast Commodore from the 1960s. It has a 4 stroke 75cc Suffolk engine. There's a magneto ignition system with points, an updraught carburettor with a separate slow running circuit, two clutches (one for the cylinder one for propulsion), and an engine governor (that still works). The fasteners are mainly A/F but the bigger and more structural ones are still Whitworth.
When we began it was completely lifeless, but it wasn't seized and it had some compression. There was no spark, but as soon as we had built a flywheel puller and cleaned the points that was cured. From then on it was plain sailing. New fuel, new spark plug, press the tickler until there was fuel dripping out of it, 4 pulls fully choked, one pull with the choke wide open and it fired and ran. By the end of the day we were cutting the grass with it!
Richard "Lionel Richie and the ..." B
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