”No good deed goes unpunished.” (Somebody important said that. It wasn’t Mark Twain.)
It wasn’t a very
magnanimous deed, anyway. I changed the
oil on the lawn mower. It’s one of those
chores too easy to put off.
Check the oil
before starting the mower. My but it is
dirty. I’ll change it when I get done
mowing. Except after I get done mowing,
I’m too tired, so I’ll put it off one more time.
This time, I
really did change the oil after I got done mowing. Getting the drain plug out of the underneath
side of the mower, then getting the mower over the drain pan so as not to
pollute anything with dirty oil, is like trying to use a bed pan in the
hospital.
The draining process finished and the
drain plug restored, I searched the place for a quart of the right weight
oil. Nothing. So I used a jug of 15-40W to fill a quart measuring can with a
spout that pivots, up when you want to contain the oil, down when you want to
send the oil into the crankcase. I
filled it full and got it all into the mower.
Then I checked
the oil. Way over full, and the words
“Do Not Overfill” clearly amplified on the dipstick through the film of clean oil.
Oh well. I’ll be sure to get some of the oil out of
the mower crankcase before I start the engine again. I stowed the mower.
A couple of weeks
later, I needed to mow again. I recalled
the too-full engine. I put an old
suction device to work with a piece of
gas line that fit over the suction pump’s inlet fitting, and small
enough to fit into the dipstick and oil fill access on the mower.
It took a few
tries to get the oil level down to near
the full mark on the dipstick. I
replaced the dipstick, filled the gas tank, gave the primer button two or three
shots.
I gave the
starter rope a jerk. The mower, reared
up and threatened to hit me. I changed
positions so I could use a foot to hold the front of the mower down while I
pulled the starter rope again. Nothing
moved. The starter rope wouldn’t
budge. A few more attempts confirmed
that.
I then performed
a dangerous maneuver. I tied the brake
lever to the handle so the brake wouldn’t interfere with my attempts to get the
engine to turn. I rolled the mower over
on its side, the side with the gas tank and the oil filler up so as not to leak
liquids all over while I grabbed the mower blade and attempted to rock it back
and forth.
The engine was
primed with gas and the spark was enabled with the brake lever tied to the
mower handle. Had I succeeded in getting
the motor turn, it could have started.
No worries. After several
attempts, I got the engine to move an inch or two.
At this point I
figured out what had happened and why the words on the dipstick, “Do Not
Overfill,” was an inviolable commandment.
The oil in the overfilled crankcase had seeped into the cylinder and
locked things up. Eventually, I figured
out that I had to remove the spark plug to get the engine to turn.
By the time I
figured that out, I had worked oil into the exhaust valve. When I did get the engine freed up enough to
turn, not only did oil spew out of the spark plug hole. It sprayed out of the muffler.
With the engine
freed up, the spark plug cleaned and replaced, I tried several times to get the
mower to start. No luck. I pulled the spark plug again and checked it
on the ohmmeter. Nothing. No amount of
cleaning, blasting with air, anointing in alcohol could get anything out of the
spark plug.
Lesson: don’t soak a spark plug in oil. It probably will ruin it.
It was
Sunday. The only place that would be
open was Big R. I threw the spark plug
into the cup holder in the car and went in to start my domestic chores.
A couple of hours
later, we got into the car to head to
town to find a new spark plug. I forgot
something and had to go back to the house.
I left the Goodwife in the car while I ran in and back out. Hurried, maybe, rather than ran.
I grabbed the
garage door opener and threw it into the car’s cupholder on top of the spark
plug. Or at least, I thought I put it on
top of the spark plug.
When we got to
Big R, I picked up the garage door opener to grab the spark plug. Which wasn’t there.
Where was it?
I looked in every nook and cranny in the car, the glove box, the
console, the door pouches, under the seats.
Nothing.
I patted down the
Goodwife. Nothing. Not in a pocket.
I didn’t jump to
the conclusion that she had relocated the thing, because I have been known to do
something without thinking about it, or even to forget that I have done
something. I might have put the spark
plug somewhere where I couldn’t miss it, but can’t remember where.
It didn’t matter. Nothing to do but go into Big R and see what spark
plugs were available. There were only
three in stock, and it wasn’t hard to select the right one.
Come Monday
morning, I installed the new plug, primed the engine, and on the second pull,
the engine fired up. It smoked horribly
for the first minute while burning the excess oil it had imbibed. Over the next
five minutes, the smoke coming out of the muffler gradually lessened to zero.
The recompense
for my good deed was fully paid.
Almost.
The spark plug
remains MIA, or MII, missing in INaction, since it wasn’t working. Not that it matters at all.
The experience is
all too usual nowadays, where I find dirty underwear in the bathroom vanity, a
flashlight in the refrigerator, or a picture removed from the wall and wrapped
up in a bathrobe for just a few examples of life in our house.
Oh well. One missing, worthless spark plug is nothing
to fret about.
