Living on a farm, homestead, or just a small country estate, we
often find much of the repair work falls on us. Home repairs,
appliances, and oh Lord, that ever-present one-cylinder engine.
One-cylinder engines are most common in sizes from 2 to 12
horsepower, carrying with it the same basic characteristics of
any gasoline engine. Trouble-shooting the one-cylinder, however,
is somewhat different from the 4, 6, or 8-cylinder.
When larger engines (those in autos with 4 or more cylinders)
are having problems, they will usually run. Not always smooth,
but they run. The one-cylinder, when something is wrong, may not
even start, let alone run. For that reason the one-cylinder
engine is a harder one to trouble-shoot.
Trouble-shooting the small engine, if you know how, can save you
quite a bit of your hard earned cash. Usually when one doesn't
start we buy a tune-up kit when it needs nothing more than a new
plug. Worse yet, the plug may just need cleaning. If we decide
something is wrong withe the carburetor we usually buy a new
one. Needless to say, much of the work and expense that goes
into the repair of a small engine is unnecessary. We work by
trial-and-error until we've spent the price of a new engine and
then take it to a mechanic who works on it for 20 minutes and
charges us for a full hour at $24 per hour or more - just for
labor!
Another important thing to remember about a small engine if you
live close to a small town is it's sometimes a hard one to get
repaired. Even though there are more mechanics today
specializing in small engines, there are still towns that don't
have a single small engines mechanic. Auto mechanics usually
don't work on lawn mowers or power chain saws.
There are only two things that a small one-cylinder engine must
have to run. It must have an adequate supply of fuel, and the
fuel must be getting into the engine. Then there must be an
adequate supply of ignition spark. These two points ar known to
mechanics as "gas and fire".
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