Jerryburger
Admiral Annoy
This is a true story, and I'm going to NOT drop names to protect the mechanically naive.
As part of cleaning/making room in our back yard, I had an old roto-tiller to give away. A friend wanted it, so since it was for a friend, I bolted on one of my better B/S 3hp engines onto it. (It's a pretty small tiller.) There was no throttle cable, so I set the motor's governed rpm at 3600 and then tightened down the lever. (Sort of like a generator, where the 3600 rpm is set, but the gov is free to do what it's supposed to do.) When he came to pick it up, I explained how the speed was set, and all he had to do was choke it to start and just worry about the belt tension lever.
About 2 hours later I get a call: It seems that the starter clutch was squealing (as they tend to do on old B/S motors) so he figures that rather than fix it, he'll just start it and yank off the blower-housing as it's running to keep the starter clutch quiet. (By this time, I'm standing in my kitchen with the phone to my ear, and my jaw dropped to the floor.)
Yup- you guessed it- NO cooling and running "WFO"... (remember....it's an air-vane governor) and he has the nerve to call me and ask why it DID run a lot faster but after a while started running crappy and then not at all....?
After explaining the implications of the stupid move he made to him, he genuinely was surprised.
...and so was I. There are people out there that have NO CLUE.
Part 2: A younger friend comes to visit (Same Day) and mentions that the "Change Oil" light has been on for the last 5 days....her boyfriend checked it and told her she was probably due for an oil-change, and can I change her oil? "Wow!" I think to myself... "These new-fangled cars even tell you when it's time to change the oil!" So I asked her to show me this light.... (I've never owned a car newer than my 96 Geo Metro, so I wanted to see this new technology for myself.) As it turns out, it was the oil pressure light. 5 days, and they were concerned that as she and her boyfriend had been driving it, it's been getting louder. Once again I had to dig DEEP into my soul for restraint, as I poured 2 1/2 qts of oil into it before it showed on the dipstick. The boyfriend was truly in awe by the concept of checking one's oil.
...again. There ARE people out there that have NO CLUE.
The moral of this is, I'm giving a B/S motor to my son, and I'm going to make him KNOW the What/Why/How of it before he lays a finger on a car or a driver's license.
As part of cleaning/making room in our back yard, I had an old roto-tiller to give away. A friend wanted it, so since it was for a friend, I bolted on one of my better B/S 3hp engines onto it. (It's a pretty small tiller.) There was no throttle cable, so I set the motor's governed rpm at 3600 and then tightened down the lever. (Sort of like a generator, where the 3600 rpm is set, but the gov is free to do what it's supposed to do.) When he came to pick it up, I explained how the speed was set, and all he had to do was choke it to start and just worry about the belt tension lever.
About 2 hours later I get a call: It seems that the starter clutch was squealing (as they tend to do on old B/S motors) so he figures that rather than fix it, he'll just start it and yank off the blower-housing as it's running to keep the starter clutch quiet. (By this time, I'm standing in my kitchen with the phone to my ear, and my jaw dropped to the floor.)
Yup- you guessed it- NO cooling and running "WFO"... (remember....it's an air-vane governor) and he has the nerve to call me and ask why it DID run a lot faster but after a while started running crappy and then not at all....?
After explaining the implications of the stupid move he made to him, he genuinely was surprised.
...and so was I. There are people out there that have NO CLUE.
Part 2: A younger friend comes to visit (Same Day) and mentions that the "Change Oil" light has been on for the last 5 days....her boyfriend checked it and told her she was probably due for an oil-change, and can I change her oil? "Wow!" I think to myself... "These new-fangled cars even tell you when it's time to change the oil!" So I asked her to show me this light.... (I've never owned a car newer than my 96 Geo Metro, so I wanted to see this new technology for myself.) As it turns out, it was the oil pressure light. 5 days, and they were concerned that as she and her boyfriend had been driving it, it's been getting louder. Once again I had to dig DEEP into my soul for restraint, as I poured 2 1/2 qts of oil into it before it showed on the dipstick. The boyfriend was truly in awe by the concept of checking one's oil.
...again. There ARE people out there that have NO CLUE.
The moral of this is, I'm giving a B/S motor to my son, and I'm going to make him KNOW the What/Why/How of it before he lays a finger on a car or a driver's license.