Easy tips for winterizing a lawnmower

For the fugal minded, take my dear brother-in-law for instance. When the time comes to get a new lawn mower, He rather prefers, buying the cheapest gas powered hand push mower he can find. In his mind there is no sense spending the extra money on all those add on bells and whistles. After all, who can blame him, he feels as though his money better spent on fishing tackle, and a relaxing day on the lake.

Homeowners like you and me, and the young person looking to start-up their own lawn mowing business their focus, the manufacture employs hard working engineers to give the person with no idea how the inner workings of a lawn mower work. The basic information they need understand to safely use and maintain their new mower is in the owner’s manual. Let’s face it, the gas engine and other major components used to make a mower cut grass efficiently are a bit intimidating at times.

You will find the proper type fuel the engine manufacture recommends using in the owners’ manual. Many cautions the use of fuel blends that contain ethanol, the thing is, alcohol produced from corn over time will cause moisture problems in the fuel system used in both cheap L-head and premium OHV lawn mower engines.

The thing to remember, today fuels, formulated for use in automobiles, which have a non-vented fuel system evaporate and get stale in a short amount of time when used in a lawn mower engine. Causing fuel system problems affecting a mower engines’ performance, hard starting, loss of power, or even worse, not start at all when you need it most because the grass is growing like crazy.

The solution begins with treating the gas in the lawn mower fuel tank, filter, and carburetor as a perishable product with a shelf life of only 30-days from the date of purchase. The stuff really goes bad, just like a container of yogurt we forgot we had in the fridge. 

Using the Briggs & Stratton, fast start fuel stabilizer will absolutely help keep your lawn mower starting and running like new.

The best way to gain access, and remove the bolt or bolts securing the mower blade to the engine crankshaft, starts with one of the following. Tipping the mower forward leaning the handle assembly against a hook on the wall, turning the mower on the discharge chute side, or, opposite the discharge chute side, the goal here is always keep the spark plug pointed up with spark plug wire removed, not spilling gas all over the place, or leaking oil, when removing the mower blade.

The Briggs & Stratton small engine care & repair manual is full of useful tips no self-respecting handyman, or woman, interested in saving time and money should find themselves without.

Cleaning a lawn mower foam air cleaner element, is relatively easy, a bit messy, yes, still one of the easier mower winterizing tasks. All you will need, compressed air for blowing loose dirt and dust from around the air cleaner cover before removing it, exposing the filter element. I have found using one of the air-powered dusters cans the best way to get this job done. No loud compressor taking up space, no hose to mess with, or blower nozzle to search for, just insert the tube / straw blower thingy into the push button atop the can and you’re in business. This also works great for cleaning dust and debris from the pleated paper air cleaner elements.

After removing all the loose dirt, dust, and debris from the air cleaner assembly, it is time to loosen and remove the screw in the center of the air cleaner cover. This makes it possible to remove the entire air cleaner assembly from the lawn mower engine carburetor. The assembly includes, cover, foam filter element, spacer and filter housing.

*note, the foam filter element will be oily.

In the event the foam filter is crumbling, torn or otherwise too far-gone to clean, discard the old filter element and replace it with a new filter.

Mix up a bucket of Dawn dish washing detergent and hot water, or I suppose you could use the kitchen sink if your spouse isn’t looking. No matter, it’s time to give all the components  of the air cleaner assembly a good soaking bath.

Love it or hate it, a gas-powered lawn mower is without question the most used lawn care tool homeowners like you and me own. Equally so, keeping our trusty mower in good working condition is although important. We often justify putting off winterizing a mower for every reason imaginable. Here are my favorite, don’t have the time, simply do not want to spend the money right now, or some version of why bother the mower works fine the way it is.