My latest "finds" are now working.

I couldn't help my self recently, noticed two items in the trash of a house that was recently vacated by the occupants; snow blower and lawn mower.

Both looked good, Toro Snow blower, litle 3hb job, nice; Troy Built 6.5 hp self-propelled mower, a beauty both side and rear discharge, why would it be in the trash ? ; even if didn't work, i can always use parts.

Snow Blower, no-start, 10 minutes of tearing apart, cleaned carb and spark plug, shot of starter fluid in the carb, starts right up, very nice.  Electric starter is broken, but properly cleaned plug and carb, fires right up with the old fashioned pull rope.  These 2-stroke engines foul easy with lack of maintenance, oil-gas mixture goes bad quickly, snow blowers are rarely used (even in the midwest, most only see use 4-5 times a year), people rarely drain the gas out in the spring and few bother to start them occasionally.  I always like to have fun and tinker; once a month I start everything I have, generators, snow blowers, mowers, tractors, weed wackers, chain saws and leaf blowers...that's fun ! 

Troy built mower, looks brand new, but diagnosis shows lack of basic care.  Carb fouled, spark plug fouled, electric cut-off safety device broken and underneath the mowing deck a side peice of sheet-metal tore off and impacted the blade (what the hell were they mowing, the african bush ?).  Hoping the engine isn't shot from the impact; so I clean 'er up enough to start, bend the metal underneath out of the way, rig-up the safety so it's ignored !, 6 pulls later she runs like champ, what a great mower.  Cut-out the metal under the mowing deck, fix the safety, this mower is better than the one I got, what a find !

Of course the "boys" helped the entire time, they love fix'n stuff too !

"People know the cost of everything and the value of Nothing", Unknown quote I heard from somewhere;  Nowhere is this more true than here, I can sell either of these peices of equipment for a few hundred bucks; absolutely nothing wrong with them except lack of care.

Another man's trash is another man's treasure.