Fixing Stuff Everyday
Living on a farm, you get used to having to fix stuff from time to time. Fences need mending, tractors and hay equipment need maintenance, plus the normal household items that need attention periodically.
Lately however we’ve been going through a rash of failures. The electric fence charger, my son’s Silverado, our furnace, the wheel-horse mower, even the relatively new 360-degree mower all failed more or less simultaneously.
I’m normally fairly handy, but most of these failures proved resistant to my run-of-the-mill diagnostic efforts. With the furnace, the problem is usually either the little vacuum pressure sensor or pre-circulation fan. These were fine. No ignition, although the circuit to the igniter was getting the full voltage, so I replaced the igniter. Still no ignition. Turns out there is a”limiter” switch on the side of the firebox that had to be reset, but I didn’t discover that until about my 5th day into the project. My regular furnace guy (Ron Chevrette – great guy) was out of State. Fortunately we’ve been facing moderate temperatures lately.
When a vehicle turns over but won’t start, you start looking for either the lack of fuel or the lack of spark. I start by shooting a little starting fluid into the carb. If that works, then I assume lack of fuel is the problem. That didn’t work. Spark check revealed that I wasn’t getting any spark. But, since I had the services of my buddy Tim, who is a trained mechanic, we took a look at the injectors too. Guess what? No spark and no fuel injection! Called another mechanic friend – no idea what single component could fail to cause both a lack of spark and fuel. A search through some Internet forums has me leaning toward an ignition module. We’ll work on it again tonight.
The 360 degree mower was an easy fix – something was caught up in a belt or something – all I did was spin the motor by hand backwards, something came free, and now it starts and runs fine. The Wheel Horse is a different matter. The starter is supposed to “throw out” a bendix, which engages the flywheel and starts the engine. It doesn’t throw out. Fully charged the battery, even hooked up jumper cables from the truck, no go. Replaced the starter, the new one does the exact same thing. Note that they both work on the bench, but won’t throw out when installed in the mower. Can’t find a short in the wiring, already cleaned the ground connections. I’m still stuck for the answer to this one.
The usual suspects on fence chargers are either broken wires hitting the ground somewhere, or the capacitor (which is exactly the same as a flasher unit from a car). The capacitor is working fine. My wife and I walked the entire length and width of the pasture multiple times over the course of 2 weeks. We cut down any weeds that even looked like they wanted to touch the wire. We replaced rusty sections of the fence. No matter what we did, the horses leaned into the wire, knocked down fence boards, broke down posts, and basically ignored the electric fence as if it weren’t there at all.
I had a short section of insulated wire that ran underground from the barn to the fence itself. Turns out that was shorting through the insulation directly to ground. Finally, one more problem resolved.
The one good thing is that I’ve been able to order parts cheaply on Amazon Parts Finder
