Not much to do while I wait for my parts, so I scrubbed with some comet. It’s not like new, but it’s much better than it was the day before.
Category Archives: Motorized junk
750sx – Day 2
There isn’t much to add, I encountered a road block pretty quick. Next stop is to start working on splitting. Removing the stator cover was straightforward and was not disappointing. No massive amounts of corrosion or any other horrible findings there. Also I found that the flywheel has a very convenient pair of shoulders on it to grab, I’m not sure what people’s deal is with removing the head and stuffing wood or rags in to stop the engine from turning is. The other end took a bit of heat and a special tool, part# LONGASSPRYBAR to spin the drive coupler off. After removing I could then see the business I was after.
Yup, I’d guess there is an issue there. On to taking apart the other side, well while I can easily not turn the flywheel, I can’t easily remove it. It has center threads for removal, but the thread pattern is 18×1.5. I ordered the right tool, as well as all the gaskets I should need for reassembly and am now waiting on them. Day 3 should be cleaning out the inside of the hull and hopefully I’ll have some after photos to share from that. Otherwise we’re in a holding pattern until stuff arrives.
Day 1 as a PWC owner/mechanic
Admittedly, I’ve “owned” the thing for about a week now, today was my first opportunity to dip it in the lake and see if it a) floated, b) ran. It did both, but the latter it did very poorly. It was sold to me under the auspices that the stator needed to be replaced. It didn’t take me long to negate that as the case, or at least that’s not the big problem. Starts and idles on 1 cylinder, second comes in with a bit of RPMs. Crank seal all the way baby.
I bought a leakdown tester and rigged up some plugs for the intake and exhaust. I learned today that not all 2 cylinder 2 strokes have a center seal(s). How that actually works, I don’t know – but I sealed off 1 side expecting I’d be able (prefer) to do the leakdown 1 cylinder at a time and was greeted with air coming out the other cylinders intake ports. WTF? It can’t be a center seal problem because only 1 cylinder is messed up. I came to the computer and googled and saw no existence whatsoever of a center seal on this thing. Like I said – how that works I don’t know. Poorly I’d guess, but whatever. I’m not about to go re-engineering Kawasaki’s Crankshaft and Crankcase that they sold 1 bajillion of.
I took the engine out, plugged both exhaust and intake ports up as well as I could; not as good as I did with just the 1 cylinder, but I was defeated at this point. Realistically it didn’t matter anyway, I was seeking to prove to myself something I was already 99% confident of. Sealed up pretty well, back on the air, the following YouTube video clearly shows it likes blowing bubbles just like a 4 year old by with a bottle of that soapy crap and the ring:
Other mentionables, with the engine out the grime in the hull cleans away pretty easy. I think with about an hour of Comet, water and a bit of elbow grease it will look almost presentable inside.
Compression is 120 on the PTO side and 130 on the Mag side. Not sure if that’s good bad or other, but it’s going to be what it is for now. So far I’ve found the thing super easy to work on and I’d like to keep it that way as much as I can. I’m going to split off the bottom to replace the seal and hope to go no deeper than that before shoveling it all back together.
Lastly, there is one picture where you’ll go WTF am I looking at. It’s a snapshot looking into the spark plug adapter for my leakdown tester, and what you see is uncleaned metal shavings. Way to go cheap tool company, couldn’t think of a better thing to drop down into my cylinder!!!
That’s it for day 1.
Simplicity Landlord 2010
Again with catching up on past stories. Awhile back I picked up this beast looking forward to the upcoming snow season. Of course it’s useful for so many other things, like taking off deers at the knees when they run towards the sickle mower!
It is a Simplicity Landlord 2010. My wager is circa 1965ish. Unlike common modern lawn tractors, this has a horizontal shaft engine. This particular unit has a full thru-shaft type crankshaft giving the engine 2 PTOs.
In my case the front PTO is used for the snowblower. The rear PTO goes to a device called the “bevel gear box” which is the achilles heel for these model tractors. Mine is in mediocre shape, not amazing, but not ready to explode either.
I had some problems with it running 100% initially, those were ironed out by replacing the points with this magical device I bought from amazon.
Future plans – see how it deals with heavy snowfall this winter. I didn’t really have everything in tune for last years snowfall before it was all gone, but I have high hopes. In time I will rebuild the bevel gear box and also open, reseal and close the leaky transmission. A good coat of paint is in order at some time but I’m not sure when that will happen.
I’ll post videos sometime this coming winter of it doing its thing.