(OT) Did I get gyped?

Make sure the blade is tight!

They will hammer if the blade is not torqued down.

It's NOT a "*Real*" TroyBuilt BTW, Sorry. It was Mfg'ed by AYP (American Yard Products) or MTD (Murray).

Real TroyBuilt stuff was built by GardenWay. Basically the TroyBuilt Horse Tiller and the the DR Sickle Bar mower.

All else TB is MTD or AYP.

OK, I will double check the blade.It isn't a self propelled lawn mower, there are some parts of my yard where a self propelled lawn mower just will not do.It has a grass catcher bag thingy on the rear.I put the cut grass in an empty shopping bag for my trash container, for the garbage truck to pick up.

Heck, my old tired walk behind lawn mower with a 3.7 horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine does almost as good as the one I bought at a pawn shop last week. cuhulin

TroyBilt is MTD owned. MTD wanted the tiller line so they bought them out. The Bolens brand was part of that deal as well.

AYP was part of Husqvarna until a couple years ago. They were spun off and now are the other box store competitor to MTD.

Murray is also a box store builder. They are now owned by the Briggs & Stratton group. They make some Craftsman, Murray, Lawn King, Scotts, Wizard, B&S also owns Simplicity, AGCO, Massey Ferguson, Snapper, Snapper Pro, Ferris Industries and Giant-Vac

Thanks for the warning...

You have probally seen those DR weed trimmer mowers on tv commercials.I was thinking of building my own.I have an old junk bicycle and a few junk 26 inch bicycle wheels here.A wheel like that mounted horizontally on a home made triangle shaped 2'' by 4'' frame with three wheels, one rear wheel.I think I want to use a 12 volt battery powered motor with a bicycle chain drive to the wheel.Any suggestions on what sort of 12 volt motor I should use.I was thinking a few plastic zip ties for the ''blades''.If it works ok I figure I could cut my lawn mowing time in half, or less.

If I don't build something like that, I might build my own ''AbCircle Pro'' exercise machine. cuhulin

If it's a newer mower the HP ratings are crap. In reality it's probably a 4.5-5 hp.. They've now switched to a torque rating I think.

My, you certainly are an imaginative fellow!

Yup, The new ratings are the peak torque and CC size of the engine. They do mean a little more than HP ratings BUT not a whole lot. The way they normally test the engines is with a flywheel weighted to match an installed blade. Then they run it to the governed rpm and hit the brake on the dyno. They make a few pulls and then average out that number.

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3172.bay.webtv.net:

Two questions: did you change the oil when you got it and what does the manual say about oil changes? Mine says after every 10 hours of use. Just before I changed it the first time - a bit early - it started making noise when under stress. Strangely enough like a carburated sport car under full throttle - that metal vibration sound you get . The blade is torqued to

Further to the first point, the dipstick gave no indication of how dirty the oil was.

Real pain to do. The only was is to tip the whole lawnmower on it's side.

I haven't changed the oil yet, it does look kind of old.My old lawn mower plastic oil cap/dipstick says use 30 weight oil.30 weight oil is what I use I will change the oil before I mow my yard about a week from now.The lawn mower didn't come with the owners manual.I have three torque wrenches, I reckon I will torque the blade to at least 50 pounds, like you say. cuhulin

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3172.bay.webtv.net:

This lawnmower is 70 because it only has the one bolt BTW.

I checked the spark plug, it looks ok to me.Then I checked the air filter, it was pretty well clogged up.I brushed the crud out of the air filter pleates.I will start it up tomorrow and see how it runs. cuhulin

Give the filter a good vacuum with a vacuum cleaner.

Run it under load.

Get yourself a B&S manual for that motor. You will enjoy reading it, and you will be able to "fine tune" that puppy to really cut grass.