Neanderpundit

No, I’m not talking about the second coming of Matt Damon.

A couple months ago I did the plugs in the Exploder but only managed 6 of 8 because I couldn’t get the damned heat sleeves out. They had rusted into the head and no amount of wiggling would get them out.

Last night on the way back to the house from where we met Mr B and Midwest Chick, the Exploder threw a Lambda probe code. The right bank of cylinders was running lean. I believe the one bad spark plug was causing the exhaust to be a bit rich, the lambda probe was trying to lean out the injectors to compensate, and then it ran too lean.

So knowing I was going to have to fight with the sleeves, I invented this:

I can’t actually take credit for the Vise Grip Slide Hammer, a lot of people I know have and use them. What I will take credit for, is discovering that you can buy the stone-stock $16 Harbor Freight slide hammer, and the $3 harbor freight vise grips, unscrew the adjustment screw from the vise grips and screw the slide hammer right in.

Clamp the vise grips on the offending sleeve, smack the slide hammer back smartly, and wow, the little bastard pops right out. Swapping the plugs was then quite easy.

The rusty bit of pipe-looking stuff is the sleeve in question. I sanded them and never-seized them before I replaced them.

I clear the code and it seems to stay away, for now. Hope it stays gone.

Anyway, now you know how to make your own Vise Hammer.

A tip of the hat to Partner for the title of the post.

If you have a lawn, and a lawnmower, especially a gas powered one, this is the time to winterize it. I think I’ll have done the last mow of this year by days end, and the trick is to get that mower winterized after the last mow and have it ready for spring.

There are a lot of different techniques for different mowers, but the basics are all the same: Fuel, air, oil, clean.

Each mower (or any piece of yard equipment) has it’s own reccomended practices, but if you’ve lost your manul, you can’t be hurt by doing it this way.

Clean: the mower in general, the cooling fins, the deck. Partner waxes his deck at the end of each season so the grass doesn’t stick. I haven’t had a mower capable of being waxed for thirty years, but if you’re as anal and as meticulous as partner is, it seems to work fine for him

Clean: the spark plug, put a little squirt of oil in the spark plug hole and turn the motor, then put the new, cleaned spark plug back in the hole and tighten to spec.

Air: Change the air filter and make sure there aren’t wads of gunk stuck in the air filter housing.

Oil the moving parts (blade stop, controls, etc) and change the oil.

Fuel is a source of some contention. If you have an older machine with a metal tank, you want to keep it full of fuel. If it’s newer and plastic, the conventional wisdom is to drain it. I’m of the “Full tank with fuel stabilizer” school of thought, and it has worked well for forty years, for me. best thig in any event, is to mix fuel with fuel stabilizer, and then run the engine, whether you drain or don’t drain, this will keep the last few drops in the carb from turning to varnish overwinter.

In spring, if you keep the tank full, drain it into a can and put THAT fuel in your car. The fuel stabilizer makes the gas a bit harder to ignite after standing for so long, so fresh fuel in the spring is a must, and the little bit of fuel in your much larger vehicle tank will not affect it’s operation adversely.

The same, of course, goes for your snowblower, assuming you have/need one, only in opposite seasons.

Just a public service announcement from a guy who hates to be fucking with stuff like this in the spring.