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Unread 09-11-2009, 09:37 PM
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Smithers Smithers is offline
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Default Honda Lawnmower Tear Down

I thought this would be fun. I've worked on small engines in the past. I'm not talking just lawnmowers but TONS of small engines from RC cars, saws, mills, tracots to small and heavy equipment. Not to mention all the different automotive engines, motorcycle engines, rotary engines, etc etc

BUT I've never had a Honda lawnmower engine torn down! Why? Well they don't break! I've talked with many people over the past couple of weeks and the only person that has worked on the internals of a small Honda engine owns a mower and equipment shop. The Hondas just last forever. So what am I doing with one? Well a friend of mine has one and she decided to use it to shave some weeds down to the dirt in a field! The mower deck was at the lowest position and the air filter was super old and clogged to the max. So the result? The head heated up so much that one of the valve guides popped loose and the exhaust rocker broke.

I went over to try and start it and it would pop maybe but the noise was coming from the intake. So I looked at the filter and saw carbon and right then you know that the exhaust valve isn't opening. I expected to see the plastic cam gears inside the engine to be broken. I popped the bottom engine case loose and nope, everything looked just fine. The plastic lifter lobes looked to be in great shape and the lifters weren't frozen. What next? Well time to pop off the over head valve (OHV) cover. Every Honda mower has a nice big OHV cover on the top of the cylinder head that gives away that it's a Honda. They've made nice covers with those letter on it to let the people know that it's a quality engine with overhead valves.

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