Cyber Lawnmower .com

My lawn mower won't start and I replace the spark plug with no success. It's not the air filter because I tried to start without it. I want to test whether the new plug give sparks. I am not exatly sure how to do this. I guess I will remove the plug from the engine. Do I need to reconnect the plug with wire? Which part of the plug need to touch where to get a spark?

You need the wire on the plug, but it still needs to be grounded to complete the circuit. Get some insulated pliers/channel locks and touch the curved end (what you bend to open/close the gap) to the engine block (not a painted surface) and pull the rope. Since that wire is so short, your best bet is to touch it to the edge of the plug hole.

2006-08-07 13:06:13 by Jim

Gas, push or electric? You be the judge.

Hello,

I am doing a High School Science Fair Project for school and i need a way to test it! My project just test the fuel efficiency on a lawn mower engine strapped to a DIY Go-Kart (built myself)! I Cant think of any way to test this. That is why I am relying on the world to help me out. Thank you all!
That was very helpfull! Are there any other ways?

There are several ways to do this, here is one way I know of.

Fill your gas tank, be very careful to remember precisely how full it is. Make a mark on it or something. Then drive the car for some distance, lets say 10 miles. Then see how much gas you used.

Whatever amount of gas it takes to refill the tank to its original level is exactly how much gas you used.

You will then be able to say my car gets X miles per gallon of gas.

For scientific experiments you should repeat the process a few times and record the results for each run, repeatability is important for such experiments.

Things to keep in mind: The faster you drive, the lower your efficiency will be due to aerodynamic drag. If you perform the experiment on different days, differences in temperature and atmospheric pressure will affect the density of the fuel and skew the results a bit. Also fuel in the system between the tank and the combustion chamber can do funny things with air bubbles and such and may not always be constant. For high school science fair projects these may be negligible, but you may want to at least mention that you understand these factors do exist.

Good luck

2008-11-29 11:40:48 by Dustin M

Okay well I read on many sites and on here how to test a starter on a driving lawn mower, Well I did that just not with my car, I used the lawn mower battery hooked the jumper cables up to that (no I did not hook it up reverse I'm not an idiot) and with the other end I hooked up the - (black) cable to the engine block and the + (red) cable I tapped the starter bolt with, well sparks shot every where every time I tryed this I don't know what that could mean, it was a test to see if the starter would spin but it didn't do anything. Am I doing the test wrong? Or is there something wrong with my starter? What do you think is wrong?
Yes it was engaged but it didnt engage when I did this test I guess it was always like this, It was aligned with the flywheel, is it supposed to retract downwards? What is my problem here?

The easiest way to test the starter is remove it from the engine. Clamp it lightly in a vice or get someone to hold it down on a work bench. Clamp the neg (black) to the starter housing. Where it bolts to the engine is good. Then firmly touch the hot (red) cable to the big stud on the starter. The one where the big wire goes when it's on the engine.

The starter motor should turn without the bendix kicking out.

You will get some sparks, but not a lot. If you get a lot of sparks, there is a short inside the starter.

2009-04-04 08:53:16 by Unknown

I just bought myself a 1995 Kawasaki ZZR250, and upon purchase, the battery was completly dead, and wil not charge.

The battery is a small, I believe 6v battery, will I be able to take the battery out of my rideon lawn mover, which is also a 6v battery, but much larger in physical size, and attach my bike terminals to it, to test the bikes electronics, or in doing this, will I blow all the bikeas fuzes and electronics?

Boy, I don't think I can be any more clear than Ace, but I'll give it my best shot.

With wet cell batteries, each cell produces 2 volts, so a battery with 6 caps is going to be 12 volts.

A lawnmower battery is going to have the ability to deliver more amps than the size battery currently in your bike, but that's not a problem. Just make sure you connect the positive (+) and negative (-) terminals correctly.

Incidently, a battery doesn't "push" amps, devices such as light bulbs draw amps (also called current) from the battery. Just like soda doesn't push itself up a straw, but rather you have to suck it up the straw.

A battery does, for lack of a better term, push voltage. Voltage is electrical pressure and without current, it's nothing. To better explain, think of electricity in a wire as you would water in a hose. The water itself is akin to amps (current) and without pressure (voltage) to push it out of the hose, it's just going to set there doing nothing. Conversely, you can have lots of pressure but if the nozzle at the end of the hose is closed, no water comes out and no work gets done. Measuring the amount of water that comes out (gallons) is akin to watts, a quantity measurement of electricity.

I hope that is a little more succinct than Ace's explaination.

2008-08-09 17:34:23 by ConstableMiK

Sure you can... Just spin it up and see if you get a shock. If you do, then it's working

2006-04-03 10:01:56 by ronniejaykelsijr