it's very old and very tired, so old in fact the blade housing has holes in it where stones have been flung through its paper thin rusting body..... but it still works.. or it did until I went over stone/root and it bent a bit of metal up inside the blade housing and consequently stopped the beast dead.....So I took it down to the workshop and tipped it on its side got the grinder and started grinding off the offending bit of bent metal... it was too thick to bend out of the way .....when "Woof" it caught fire right under the carburettor ....
I can see you all tutting now saying I should have emptied the petrol tank before I started with the sparks everywhere.... well I actually did think ahead and I did empty the fuel from the tank and this is where it got considerably worse very quickly ...
Prior to grinding it I thought "hmmmm I'll have to empty the petrol tank, just in case !!....which I did and mopped up what I'd spilt with a large rag ... because it's not easy emptying a lawnmower fuel tank..... I then moved away from the area (very large workshop plenty of space) I'd accidentally spilled the petrol on and started grinding
Cue Quentin Tarantino style cut back to burning carburettor...I flicked the lawn mower onto it's wheels by this time the flames were about a foot high...and despite several attempts to smother the flames .....it just didn't work....then the fuel line melted and they got about 3 feet high.... so I rushed across to where I emptied the fuel out and picked up THE RAG ....instinctively thinking I could stuff this under the gap where it's getting air to smother the flames.... YUP the rag burst into flames quite vigorously as I was holding it..... it still had petrol on it (Duhhhh....of course) so now I had two fires, luckily I didn't throw the rag towards the ice cream tub half full of petrol or I would have had 3 fires to deal with ..... (Don't panic Mr Mannering.....)
It was at this point a stunned Andrea arrived home to find me desperately trying to smother a burning lawn mower....she noticed the billowing black smoke no doubt coming from the workshop....so lets recap one burning mower and a large rag on fire several metres away.... my attempts to smother simply wasn't happening little did I know that by turning the mower on it's side I had filled the foam air filter with the remaining petrol from the carb....
it wasn't going out in a hurry....
I knew the only way to get it out would be to remove the air filter with it's top screw but I honestly didn't fancy barbecuing my hands and arms.... so to shouts of "What the hell are you doing ?" I raced past my confused wife seeing no real need to explain what I was doing because it was pretty damn obvious by that time......and into the house (which is a good 30 metres away up the iron stairs out into the yard then down the driveway) .... I had got to the stage now where despite all the warnings about water and petrol on fire never the two should you mix.... I'd run out of options
even the kids were joining in gleefully filling sand buckets for the beach with water....
thankfully a single pan of water put it out immediately without spreading the fire any further.... we cleared the area after I had made sure it wasn't smouldering away and had tea while the smoke dispersed.....
I had to replace the carb and petrol tank and the air filter (thankfully we had an even older Briggs and Stratton mower which I robbed the parts off) and it's now working again despite being thoroughly cooked by me... although I'll have to setup it's idle speed because currently it thinks it's entered a formula 1 race...... any faster and it would be a hover mower.....
Pretty much a normal day at our house....
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