Gerri

Did ya wave a dead chicken over it? They sometimes leave that one out of the directions in the manual. :)

Seriously though, add mixed gas, prime a bunch of times, set choke, set the throttle and pull away. That's about my knowledge of these things. If it was anything electronic, I'd get the neighbors 4 year old to show me how to work it.

Lloyd

Lloyd,

You know, I didn't try the dead chicken. That must be the problem. ;) I didn't see it in the manual, but it's worth a try at this point. haha..

I did add the mixed gas, pushed the bubble the prescribed amount of times.. set the choke and pulled until I broke a sweat. Then I tried it all again. Nothin'. My neighbor wasn't home to go ask, but if he's home tomorrow I'll bother him with it when I see him in the yard.

Of course if it were electric, I have one of those 4 year olds handy, he'd be able to fix it in a jiffy. He tried to help me with this one, but 2-cycle engines aren't his specialty yet.

Thanks for the advice though. I'll start thawing a chicken now.. or do you think the feathers are essential? My mom's neighbor has some live chickens.. maybe just having them nearby would help?

Of course, the 40 bags of unshredded and partially shredded leaves are composting nicely anyway. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with the shredding thing. Did I mention I'm a compost wacko?

Gerri

Has to be a fresh kill chicken and you have to smear a little of the blood on your cheeks. There is also a special hat that has to be worn made out of cardboard and sheathed with tin foil.

Almost forgot about the chant, can't remember it off the top of my head but someone here has to know it.

And there has to be a photographer to document the whole thing otherwise it won't start!

Lloyd

Lloyd,

I'm sure that would all be very entertaining.. umm.. for someone. :)

I'm not psychic but I do foresee a trip to Wallyworld in my future. ;)

Well.. unless someone knows the chant.

Gerri

Gerri,

I'll e-mail you the chant. It has a few choice words in it that would get me kicked off this forum and all of GW for good... I used to use it on the gas powered whipper snipper/gas trimmer/whachacallit thingy and on the gas powered mower which would start for my DH but NEVER for ME.

We now have a reel mower, battery powered whipper snippers (need two for the size of property we have), and an electric B&D Leaf Hog. Can you tell DH wears the pants inside the house, but I wear them outside???

Gerri

But just imagine the pictures your 4 year old could take to school for show and tell...All the other kids would be jealous of having such a cool Mom!

Trust me on this one.

Lloyd

Tiffy - You wouldn't believe it, but I actually almost got the chant right yesterday all on my own! Must be a universal thing.

Lloyd - Amazingly enough, the pictures are the only part of this that frighten me. But ok, I trust you.

LOL!
I'm not familiar with that piece of equipment.....but have other stuff that I can't get started......so I just wanted to mention.......Is there an on/off switch you didn't turn on? Try opening the gas cap and putting it back on. Try different choke positions. Is it in the right "gear"? Are all the various wires hooked up to where they should be (like to the start switch and the spark plug?). Is the spark plug tight?
You have to hold your mouth just right too, as you're pulling on the cord.
Gosh....I can't tell you how many times in my life I've just about killed myself trying to get those various pieces of equipment started! You have my sympathy/empathy. :)

I can't start those things for one simple reason- my arms aren't long enough. The pull cords are longer than my arms can stretch. There's a reason why I need petite shirts.

Karen

"But ok, I trust you." Bad move!

But I had a better idea whilst I was out standing in my field,

Get Gramma to do it!

Lloyd

I don't know who invented the pull start but I have my suspiscions. I'm sure HE resides in a very hot place and has horns. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent trying to start "something" with a pull start. I want someone to invent a "starting station" where you can go to in your garage, attach it to the beast that needs started and have it do all of the work. Our property is too big to have a long enough electric cord to reach so I am doomed until that invention comes to pass....

Lloyd, you are going to be disappointed.

I got it started without the chicken! I did some leaf shredding today. It's not the miracle device I had hoped, but it works and the shredded leaves eventually end up in the bag. After spending $100 here, $100 there and another $100 just to be sure, I would have been better off getting a good mower!

Disappointed, not really.

See, had you gone the chicken route, that sucker/blower thinga-mabob woulda pulverized them leaves into the mostest beautiful mulch you have ever seen. Now I know that you're wanting to know Lloyds remedy for the predicament you have gotten yourself into. Well, it involves a video camera, a bonfire, cowboy boots and some three-toed frogs....

Lloyd

I'm so gonna get thrown off this forum!

Hello,

I have been reading these forums for months now and have become obsessed with composting. I signed up tonight because i feel that i may actually be able to contribute some knowledge in this case. For a 2 cycle motor you need to set the kill switch to the on position, prime (push bubble), set the throttle at the half way position then pull cord until the motor sounds as if it attempted to start but then gave up. From that point you want to set the throttle to choke (all the way over) and pull cord again. It should start right up. Hope that helps

Brandon

Hi Brandon, welcome to the forum. Don't let the lack of knowledge keep you from posting, it hasn't prevented me from participating. (as you've probably seen already)

You mean these things will work without the chicken, frog or newt? The guy at the service department was lying to me all these years? What the heck do I do with all the pictures and video now?

You know, I don't recall ever hearing of anyone becoming obsessed with compost before, maybe you should seek some professional help with that. As it turns out, the same service guy at the small equipment shop, knows a guy, whose brother in law went to school with a person who could help you with that. I'll see if I can track down a name for ya.

Lloyd

Electric lawnmower?
Best thing about a lawnmower is using it to windrow the leaves to the compost pile.
The first year we lived here my wife laboriously raked all the leaves to the pile. She wouldn't HEAR about the lawnmower said it would screw it all up.
Last year I didn't listen to her and just ran into the leaves with the mower, then backed up and made another pass etc etc etc until I had pushed all the leaves to the pile, 2 minutes of raking later and we were done... She said "geez if I'd known it would work like that..." :)

Welcome Brandon and thanks for the tips.

Dotty.. if someone would PLEASE come up with a starter station I would pay big money for something like that. You need to patent that idea right away and hire an engineer, you'll be RICH.

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions, and most especially you, Lloyd. If I did not have a sense of humor about this I might just cry.

This story does not have a happy ending. Not yet anyway. Not unless I can find a competent small engine mechanic in the area.

Here's what happened today:

I go to my family's restaurant, leaf vac in tow, because they have a lot of trees on the property around back. Couldn't get it started and gave up.

Put the leaf vac in the back of the truck and headed over to my moms. I had several bags of coffee grounds to put in the compost over there. Many of my 40 bags of leaves also ended up over there in sheet composting beds, so I pulled the leaf vac out again.

I got it started this time. Not without difficulty, but it did start up and it was working. I don't believe the 10-1 ratio, but anyway, I filled the bag up a couple of times and was happy about that.

The happiness was short lived.

In those beautiful leaves was a hidden danger I had not seen before. I thought I had gotten all of the non-leaf items out if the leaves but sadly, I was wrong.

The machine bogged down and shut off. So I took the vac tube off to see what happened. There is a red plastic peg with a cord attached to it hanging out of the machine now. The cord is wrapped around inside the shreddy and part. I tried to pull the starter cord to see if I could get it moving some and work it loose and the starter cord won't budge.

So, here I am. Back to square 1.

The score now is:

Lawn tools: 4

Gerri: 0

Jeez Gerri, that sucks! There is no way I can inject any humor into that situation.

I get so many bags with improper items in them it makes my head hurt. When I first started getting leaves a few years ago I had intended to use an old piece of machinery to shred them. When I saw all the crap that came in the bags I realized that plan wouldn't work. I didn't want to risk breaking the machine as it is technically an antique. (A local farm Museum asked if they could have it)

One of the locals got miffed at me because I was dumping the contents out of the more expensive compostable paper bags they had purchased. I had to explain to them that I couldn't trust the citizens and have to dump every bag.

I hope things work out for you and you get that thinga-mabob going again.

Lloyd

Thanks Lloyd. I can't say you didn't warn me about the "extras" that come with OPBL. I didn't find a lot of junk, but there were a couple of plastic drink containers and some plastic straws in there, and a couple of candy bar wrappers. I thought I had raked them around enough and found all that was in there, but this thing obviously eluded me.

I'm sure it will all work out. When this kind of thing happens, I usually call my dad and complain to him until he thinks of someone he knows who might know someone who is related to someone who used to date a person who can help. So I'm sure somewhere along the chain of acquaintances we'll find someone who is willing to take it apart and fix it up for me.

There might still be a happy ending to the leaf vac shredder thingy saga. That is if it gets fixed and until I manage to break it again. :) I guess the taking it back to Walmart ship has sailed.. haha. See? I'm still in good spirits, there are still jokes to be made at my expense.

I think I might go get a load of manure tomorrow to make myself feel better.

Gerri-know the feeling well! Mine did the squeel like a stuck pig noises too. I found a nice wad of dryer sheet in it---it really isn't too bad prying out. Wait till you get some mulch up in it--the noise's are kinda neet, as long as you shut down fast so not to trash the machine. I got electric---love it!!!!

dlpasti - is yours a Poulan Pro too? Electric.. no trouble starting, gotta love that. I didn't see any electric ones when I was shopping or I may have considered that option. However, I did like fact that with the gas powered one I could roam and gather leaves all over the place, or so I thought.

I'm keeping the hope alive though. Hopefully I'll be back in business before leaf season is over.

You have a major advantage over me G~ Lots of leaves here yet to shreddddddddddd, but with it raining most of today, rain/snow the next few days, don't know if I'll get to shredd much more for leafage this fall---may have to settle for the lawn mower chopping a bit.

Have you gotten it running well yet? I asked them at work, (Wallyworld), nobody has heard of any problems with any sold at our store, so far anyways.

It still has the thing hanging out of it. I think I might try to take it apart myself tomorrow.. then I really will need a mechanic.

Gerri

get it running yet Gerri? HOPE SO!!!

d

Wondering if you could be flooding it. Take off the choke after two pulls and do not push to button more than the number of times it says

I made a win-win deal with my neighbor. He'll help me fix it and I'll clean up his leaves for him. :)) So it's not fixed yet, but it will be. I've been slowed down a bit because I was bogged down with real work and now have company in town, but next week I'll be back at it. Hopefully I can collect leaves to my heart's content after tomorrow.

My aunt and cousin are in town and I deputized my cousin as the UCG collector this weekend while Clemson was having homecoming. He got me LOTS of UCG to mix with my leaves. :)

It all ends on a happy note, for now anyway.

A small engine repair shop guy fixed it and tuned it up. Now it starts as it should, without great difficulty and works like a charm.

I was in my neighbor's yard today sucking up the piles of leaves he had raked up.

I just found this thread. Glad you got it running.

An earlier poster suggested going to half choke, pull a couple times, then go to full choke. That is backwards according to the manuals for every small engine I've ever read. It's full choke till it tries to start, then half. Be listening for that "tries to start" - it will be a brief firing of the engine and you HAVE to stop there and go to half choke so you don't flood it. Another poster mentioned being careful with the choke so as not to flood it. I would agree 100% with that. If you pull it on full choke several times (my limit is about 5) and it does not try to start, STOP and go to half choke for a couple pulls - it may be already flooded with fuel and needs more air. These things can flood easily and no amount of pulling will clear it, only fresh air. If I suspect I've flooded one I go to full open on the choke (ie RUN mode) and pull a couple times. If it doesn't start I go get some ice tea and leave it for a few minutes.

Once the engine is warm you may need no choke to restart it, or only half choke. Don't go to full choke on a warm engine unless it won't start without it, or you can flood it.

And don't suck up bad crap. :-D