There’s A Reason It Comes With A Manual

My neighbor bought a new small chain saw for pruning and cutting firewood sticks. In the carrying case with the  saw was a user’s manual. He picked it up, quickly riffled through it, then tossed it back in the case, unread.

About a year later I was doing some thinning at my place. During a refueling break, I clamped my saw to the bench top and was touching up the cutters with a file when the neighbor stopped by. He asked if there was something wrong with my saw.

“No,” I said, “I try to remember to sharpen it after every other gas fill-up.”

“Oh,” he said, “I haven’t had to do that yet with mine.”

I asked him how his saw was running. He said it wasn’t. “The last time I managed to get it started it barely ran. Just sputtered and popped and died every time I squeezed the trigger. Now it won’t even do that.”

I asked him how old the gas in his saw was. He said he doesn’t use the saw all that much, so his gas can still has the original gas/oil mix in it from when he got the saw.  I suggested he dump all that original gas out of the saw and the can and start fresh. He did, and his saw worked fine after that.

She Ain’t What It Used To Be

On my farm, I have several gas engines in various machines—tillers, mowers, chain saws, pruning shears, a weed whacker, pumps, and some small vehicles. Every one of these machines came with a user manual and every manual cautions against using old gas. “Old gas” is generally defined as gas purchased more than 3 months ago.

Every manual has a section dealing with the storage of the machine., “Storage”, meaning putting the machine to bed for the  winter, usually involves draining the gas tank and then running the machine until the carburetor and lines are empty. That’s easy enough to do on a chain saw or a weed whacker, but can be a real pain with a mower or a tiller. For example, I have a mower that has to be turned nearly upside down to empty the tank.

Fortunately, there are preservatives, usually called ‘stabilizers’, that you can add to the machine’s gas. Most all user manuals agree that these stabilizers are an acceptable substitute for draining. Sta-bil® is one brand readily available.

We Can Pump You Up

Not counting personal vehicles, there are 27 pneumatic tires on various pieces of equipment on my farm.  The odd one is the wheelbarrow. Come spring, I fire up my air compressor and drag the hose around topping up all the tires. Each machine requires different air pressures from the others and on some, the front tire pressures are different than the rest. That’s 12 different pressures for the 27 tires! All the manuals list the recommended PSI but who wants to look it up for every tire every year? I suppose it’s possible to remember them, but to make room I would have to forget other numbers like my Social Security number, my wife’s birthday and 9-1-1.

Fortunately, I had a better idea: Using a felt tip indelible pen, I wrote the required tire pressure on each wheel rim right next to the valve stem. Now, the PSI is right in front of me as I go around with the tire chuck and gauge.

Socket To Me

There was a time when all one needed was a set of combination wrenches and sockets from 3/8” to 3/4”  to do most of  the necessary maintenance on equipment. Then Mr. Metric came along and my tool kit doubled in size. And then, to further confound things, I discovered some manufacturers use both SAE and metric nuts and bolts on the same machine.

Most manuals have drawings or photos of various parts to be serviced. (“remove bolts C and D—see figure 4.b”) I found it helpful to note on the picture the wrench sizes needed to undo bolts C and D. That saves me from crawling under my tractor with a 9/16” socket only to crawl back out to exchange it for a 14mm.

You’ll Get A Charge Out Of This

Owner manuals don’t talk too much about the batteries in their machines. They give the usual cautions about acid, fumes, and sparks, and  a word or two about the electrolyte level, but not much else on battery care.

The batteries in equipment such as a riding lawnmower, tiller, wood chipper or a small vehicle are about 1/3 the size of a car battery and are usually very easy to access, service, and remove. Since I store my machines in an unheated barn where winter temperatures will get to single and minus digits, I remove the batteries and store them in my heated shop. Because they are stored several months, I found it’s a good idea to indicate on the batteries which machines they go with. (There’s that memory thing again: felt-tip to the rescue.)

This is also a good time to check the electrolyte level if the battery has filler plugs or caps. A lot of the newer batteries have a white opaque case with high and low level lines on the sides. If you get the light just right, tilting the battery slightly will move the electrolyte level up an down so you can see where it is at the level lines. Of course, with other batteries, you gotta take the plugs out and peer in with a flashlight. DO NOT USE A CANDLE OR A MATCH!

If any cells are low a squeeze-ball applicator, such as a  turkey baster, is handy to top up the cells using distilled water.

I store the batteries in an out-of-the-way corner of the shop on a wooden bench, never on a concrete floor. The constant cold of a concrete floor leaching up through a battery is a sure way to shorten its life.

A trickle charger, available for a few dollars at any auto parts store, is a smart investment to keep the batteries charged and ready to go in the spring. I list all the batteries in a column on a sheet of paper. Across the top of the page I add the months October through April. Once a month I put each battery on the charger for 10-12 hours and log it on the list. Then in the spring, a day or two before I put the battery back in its machine, I give it a final zap.

Manual Override

User manuals contain a wealth of information about the care, service, and use of a machine. After all, they’re written by the company that makes them. They want their product to work well for what it was intended.

But a manual is only helpful if you can find it. If a machine comes in a plastic case, a chain saw for example, that’s where I keep its manual. All the others I keep in a file folder in my shop where I do my repair and servicing.

That’s it for this session. Next up : Conquering world starvation and carving a canoe paddle.

By John Nichols (a.k.a. JW)
© 2011 Javabird LLC.  All rights reserved.

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