Neanderpundit

This is what it looks like on the inside. The plastic baffle was from the original filter, the only thing unmolested.

I always have the foam around, and the cover pops neatly into place. I got a lot of mowing done so I know it works fine.

Tilling was another challenge; the old Troy Bilt was recalcitrant so I pulled the filter… to discover the carb and the top of the engine was full of fuel.

This has happened before, the brass float pinholes and it’s usually a couple minutes work with the torch. Except this time it’s been soldered so many times it may not even float.

I don’t have high hopes for finding a float; this is a Lauson Engine (A company that later became Tecumseh) and I figure I’m going to have to order it. So I go to the local hardware store and show the counterman my float.

And he returns in two minutes with a plastic replacement. I pay for the float and head home. A quick oil change and five minutes later, this 45 year old piece of lawn equipment is purring like a kitten, and tills my garden to a consistency approaching flour.

I have the original paperwork that accompanied this tiller, including a letter indicating the ship date signed by the manager of the company itself, sent to my uncle in September of 1967. he ordered it in August, sending a cashiers check for just over $300. Calvin farmed a 6 acre strawberry farm with this tiller until he died.

Every season I use this, I think about Calvin opening the crate and assembling it for the very first time. I try to take care of it the way he did.

Last winter I ended up dropping a stovejoint on the damned lawnmower,breaking the air filter housing, an action which annoyed me no end. Further annoyance was caused by my discovery that while HFT would be tickled to sell me a replacement filter housing for $8, I would have to wait 8 weeks for said device.

But the lawn wants mowing NOW.

So I cobbled this together.
It works fine. I’m almost inclined to like it so much I don’t want to put the original filter back on.

I will, but I like this anyway.

I was at a customer who was experimenting with some way to tie his charging handle to the BCG in his rifle.
This was one of the older rifles without the forward assist, and he was convinced that connecting those two items was the answer to his troubles.

I was going to suggest a new upper and BCG, but I was then and am now an AR newbie, so I wasn’t going to comment.

Sure enough, I ran into him today, and he had a big scar across his cheek. Guess you don’t have to be too smart to know when not to be a dumbass.