Friday 7 May 2010

Awake: 6:17am     Temp 42     sleep 5+58     sunny     overnight @ Nicktown.

The 8:00am Mass this morning was for Marge & Dave's 50^th Wedding Anniversary. His brother Cliff, Jill & other siblings were also present in church; Dave, Cliff, & Jill came to our Koffee Klub meeting to continue the mile-stone celebration.

After the KK adjourned, & we were back in our motorhome, I walked across our yard & found Mac in his workshop. I was ready to start Mac's riding mower & drive it over to my mini shop, but aah, the battery was dead.

I asked Mac if he had a battery charger; "yes I do," he said, "but I don't know where it is." "That's ok Mac, I'll get mine, bring it over & charge the battery while I'm having breakfast."

After breakfast, I asked Mac if I could mow some of my own grass with his mower as a test in checking just why his mower backfires so much & shuts down frequently. He said that would be alright.

Well, after about (15) min of mowing on this sunny but rather cool morning, the riding mower coughed & shut itself off. Hmm, so I turned off the key & did something else for awhile.

Maybe (20) min later, I continued mowing a spell & then the same thing happened again. That did it; I pushed the mower closer to my tool box & started turning wrenches....thinking, it has to be the carburetor.

Fortunately the carburetor came off fairly easily; I took my time & cleaned the sections carefully. I found nothing wrong that I could see...only a little grime.  

I was lucky in putting that carb back together; no parts left over & even luckier because I mowed the remainder of our grass (about 50) min with no shutdowns or backfiring.

I was nearly finished when John B. rode up on his motorcycle; we did some technical talk about the carb & then John had to leave.

After returning the mower to its proper owner, I could hear Mac mowing his grass but I heard no shutdowns or backfiring. May it continue!   

Next, I got in touch with another near neighbor, Chuck; he has a walk behind mower that is not running well. It will start but shuts down instantly. Maybe another carb fix. I brought it over to my mini shop but did not have the time to do any more troubleshooting today.  

Dinner: Crab cakes, rice, leftover Waldorf salad, broccoli & cutie oranges.

Melissa called: she apologized for not checking her phone messages during the late evening hrs. They didn't do anything special for their 10^th wedding anniversary. They were too busy getting ready for the BIG bike ride.

Katrina called: so far she has not bought a new hot water heater.

Lights out: 11:13pm.