E10 and small engine problems

Seriously, we are having a fairly miserable summer so far. Have yet to break +30 C, highs of +37 C wouldn't be unusual for this time of the year. My joke about Inuvik, Northwest Territories, which is inside the Arctic Circle, being warmer than we have been, is actually the truth

It appears our weather has been mysteriously swapped with that of Vancouver, BC. They are having the +37 C days right now. I want our climate back, at once

 

Call Al, it's all his fault.

 

I'm willing to blame anybody for this s****y weather

 

It's a very nice 96 degrees and 18% humidity here

 

57°F (13.9°C) here right now, but at least the rain has stopped for a few hours.

Tom

 

About the weather we have right now. This is going to turn out to be a miserable long weekend

 

In my experience the pecking order is:

Lowest

• Tecumseh
• Briggs & Stratton
• Kohler
• Honda
• Kawasaki
• Kubota (diesels)

Highest

I worked for a transaxle manufacturer that supplies ~ 50% of the hydrostatic transaxles used in lawn and garden tractors. We would normally have 5-6 vehicles from different manufacturers running on our test track at any given time.

Husqvarna is a top notch company. I dealt with our international customers and worked with Husqvarna quite a bit. Top notch company with great engineers designing top notch product. (Note: this is for the commercial grade products sold in the European market; the big-box store stuff is typical disposable crap)

 

Well, much like chain saws. The professional stuff from Stihl and Husqvarna are very high quality. The ones you get at a big box .... completely disposable

My folks bought a professional Husqvarna brush trimmer (Way stronger than a weed whipper) back in the mid 1980's. The thing was built like a tank, even had a backpack harness system. You could put cutter heads or weed whipper heads on it

The thing had huge handlbars, straight shaft, and a grease tit at the gearhead so you could keep it well greased. The carb had both low and high mixture adjustment, and it would always start on the first pull

By the late 1990's the folks decided they needed a much smaller machine. They had an even trade (A HUGE rip off!) for a dinky little machine that claimed to be made by Stihl. It's actually made in China.

It never ran right at the best of times, just refused to idle. Before the summer was up, dealer gave them another one, and it wasn't much better. Yep, they should have kept that old commercial unit, it was well built and easy to service

 

I tend to agree on the box store stuff. I bought what I thought would be a decent tractor tiller unit, damned gearbox on the tiller melted after a few hours work. I dumped all that junk off on other people and bought a Kubota CUT with the front end loader, and recently added a backhoe to it. I have a 3 point tiller, finish mower, box scraper, blade, and boom, and it has been the best damned little tractor, starts every time, no matter how hot or cold it is, runs on diesel, and I run WMO from the cars in it after filtering it, less waste in the system, and I can go an entire day of hard work on less than 6 gallons of fuel. Unfortunately, my property has too many trees that were planted by a crazed woodsman, no plan or pattern to them, and cutting the grass around all the trees with the 6' mower deck behind me was a pain, and caused too much damage to the trees and the mower deck, so we decided to get a smaller lawn tractor. I considered the John Deere 176 model, until I went to the John Deere store and compared it to the models you cant get at HD. What a peice of junk the 176 model is, wouldnt last 2 years on my land. We bought an X500 instead, one that should last 30 years or better. Right now our grass is on its two week cycle, so we only need to cut the grass every two or three weeks, but even so, the drawback is the little tractor uses more gas than the big one uses diesel for the same job.

 

You are correct that the JD 176 is junk. It only has a 250 hour design life.

I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment by expecting 30 years of service from an X500. The X-Series is a single platform lineup so all the tractors from the X300 to the X700 have the same frame. The models are differentiated by transaxle, deck, and engine size along with some minor details and accessories.

John Deere wasn't my account but my former employer makes all the hydrostatic transaxles for John Deere. Does your X500 have a K58 or K72 transaxle? I can tell you the design lifetime by what transaxle is fitted.

Regardless of which transaxle you have you can greatly extend the life of your transaxle by keeping the oil clean. I highly recommend that you change the oil after the first 5 hours of use. The gears in your transaxle are powdered metal and they wear together as the transaxle breaks in. This leaves particles of metal in your oil.

 

Uh oh, you're doomed. Best to just run away from the place without a backwards glance

Just kidding!

I personally had to put my Husqvarna 66 chainsaw to heavy use, cutting down sickly, downright dangerous trees at the hobby farm, when I first bought the place

I had the place less than a month, drove out to check on progress for knocking down the condemned old house, and a moderate windstorm had blown one of the sickly trees right across the driveway

I like trees, but only in forests. I just won't have trees within 500 metres of my house. Not only are they lightning magnets, but it seems every minor gust of wind there are branches landing on the lawn

Trees located near homes also become evil after awhile. They instinctively push their roots into your water and sewer pipes, the natural gas pipe, and into your basement

 

Au contrare' my good (jay)man,

Trees are great friends for all kind of good energy savings. Shade trees to reduce summer heat gain reducing or eliminating A/C costs. A well designed wind break can cut winter heating costs by as much as 50% or more. Not to mention trees use CO2 and create O2. Leave mulch cuts down on water use in the garden etc.

Icarus.

PS Jay, spoken like a true 'pegger! Not a tree to be seen for 1500km if you go west!

 

uhhh...jay...if there are no trees to catch that lightning your house is the only prominent target available. :scared: Personally, I prefer it when a tall tree takes the hit. Had one about 9 years ago in a neighbor's yard that blew chunks of wood up and down the street. It was the tallest around until the strike. I could trace out the major roots where it turned the dirt up as fresh furrows, and it carved a neat line down through the bark on one side. The chainlink fence about 10 feet away had arc marks at every point that the fence contacted the upper tubing. The sound of the strike was so loud (plus it knocked out some electronics temporarily) that I was fumbling around in the attic making sure I didn't have a smoldering hit on the house, then standing out in the rain with a flashlight checking for any obvious damage.

On the other hand...I did have an old tree drop a major section onto the master bedroom roof two years ago. Seems that part of the trunk facing the sky had rotted, not visible from the ground until the ~10-12" diameter section slammed into the house during a storm. Fortunately, another tree's branches took the primary impact and I was able to repair the very minor roof damage myself. Burned the broken limbs from both as firewood the following winter.

The part about the gust of wind reminds me of a lady a few blocks down who picks every leaf out of her yard daily...and she has birch that shed lots of leaves routinely. I think she needs a hobby.

 

I really do like trees. Just nowhere near my home though

Their roots are positively satanic, and instinctively "root out" utility lines, sidewalks, and basements.

Oh, their leaves. Always clogging up the eavestroughs/gutters

A properly installed and grounded utility pole will more reliably take the hit, and in a much safer manner, too. For some reason, lightning rods appear to have fallen out of favor, though they really do work - if properly installed

Leaves, don't get me started on leaves.

 

My house is surrounded by trees and it stays in shade most of the day, except in the morning, the garage is in the open in front, so it gets full morning and early afternoon sun. If I were to rip out all the trees, the house would be unbearable in the summer and cold in the winter. I have gutter guards(if I can ever get the roof done I will reinstall them) that keep the leaves out, but only work well when the gutters are properly installed(mine arent, I have to redo what the installers did). The only trees I can say are not good to be close to a house are willows, and sure enough, there are some at the back of the garage that one of them came down during a storm and poked some holes in the garage.