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Ben's Garage

Name: Ben's Garage
Address: Saint Joseph, MI, 49085, US
Telephone: +2694148589

Focusing on the repair of outdoor power equipment, snowblowers, mowers, and other fun things

05/18/2025

Working on a yardmax mower where the speed control cable for the self propel broke. Taking off the covers I can tell why. The shields beneath the mower collect clippings and hold them with no way to clean them out other than removing them which is beyond typical homeowner maintenance. You can see the amazing molded clipping sculpture I pulled out of this. Those clippings hold moisture which corroded the cable end, and made the blade adapter (which you have to remove to take off the covers) seize to crankshaft.

05/15/2025

It’s been a busy spring working on mowers. This old craftsman came in for a new deck engagement cable but also the front wheels were a bit wonky in the steering. Turns out the front axle was cracked and broken. Was able to get a used axle from eBay and get this steering properly again.

12/03/2024

It's snowblower season. I just had one come in where the transmission was locked up. MTD went with this multi-gear setup for a few years where there is one fixed gear on each axle and the others are on needle bearings. This design needs routine oiling/greasing to keep those bearings free. They then went back to a single fixed gear on each axle which requires less maintenance. Thankfully, I was able to get the transmission apart and free the bearings. They cleaned up well, which is good, because new gear sets would have been very expensive. Also, with these MTD blowers the axle shafts tend to rust and seize the wheels in place, which means you can't take things apart to service the transmission. I always make sure to give those axles a good greasing to make sure things are serviceable in the future.

09/24/2024

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Been working on a number of mowers this summer. I’ve got a lot of basic push mowers that just came in if anyone is looking. Worked on an early 90s Honda scooter, and a couple of kids ATVs. One needed a little welding to fix the rear axle mount. I had an assistant take the test drive.

06/08/2024

Here’s an image of having a bad time. Had a broke off license plate screw. Tried drilling it out and using an extractor but turns out the manufacturer used a riv-nut and I broke that free so it was just spinning. Had to cut that out, it now lives in the tailgate, and replace it. I’ve been wanting a riv-nut setter for a while and now had the excuse to buy one.

04/15/2024

Mixing things up in Ben’s Garage this weekend. Have a friend with a 50 year old Hobart Kitchenaid mixer. It was oozing some grease a few years ago. They started taking it apart to clean up and service bir got stuck in thr progress. I was able to get it opened up, remove thr old grease, check the condition of thr gears (they were great and all metal, no plastic worm gear in this puppy) then grease with new food grade grease, a new gasket and o ring and back to the customer for more mixing service.

01/28/2024

Working on this old Ariens. Was supposed to be an easy job but the last owner somehow really messed it up. The governor, carb linkage and things were all out of whack. Needed a valve job, so had to pull the head. Now I’ve found the flywheel key is broken so I’m waiting until I can get one of those and it should be back and running better than ever.

01/21/2024

I picked up an electric Handy lift from a mower shop that was closing. Hooked it up yesterday and it’s a great addition, so nice to get off the ground to work on things. Need to rearrange the garage once things warm up for a good work flow.

12/27/2023

Haven't posted for a while. Things have still been going on in the garage. But for the past 4 months I've been helping out coaching the middle school robotics team, which has taken a lot of my garage time. The season is over, and we had our 3 teams qualify for state, with one team being on the champion alliance! I'm super impressed with First Robotics and the skills and processes it teaches. I'm back in the garage working on some repairs. Hope to get some snow eventually to play with some snowblowers.

08/31/2023

I was given an old snowblower that wasn’t operating. It needed new belts and then I found the auger shaft was loose in the bearing. Upon inspection the old bearing had broken and wore about 1/4” out of the 7/8” shaft. This has obviously run like this for a long time. It’s an old machine without a lot of value so I was able to weld a filler in the shaft and smooth it out and replace the bearing. Keeping this machine out of the junkyard with a repair that is appropriate for the age and value of the machine.

08/23/2023

The last post about my fuel pump is also a good time to talk about parts. This is a John Deere mower, so you look up the John Deere fuel pump and it costs $180. However, Kawasaki makes the engine, so if you look up the Kawasaki part it’s $130. It’s the same exact part, just in a different box. Or, you can get a high quality aftermarket version for $70. Or, you can press your luck with a knockoff from Amazon for $20. I’m trying the Amazon knockoff because it’s my own mower and I can fix it again if needed, I can get the part in 2 days, it only takes 20 min to change it out, and I’ve had good luck with the knockoff carburetors on Amazon. However, for someone else’s machine I’d suggest the high quality aftermarket, or OEM. Because, those come with a warranty and I have a lot more faith in those to work well and hold up.

08/22/2023

My mower was smelling like gas. Found the fuel pump had failed. These old Kawasaki pumps had a vent hole that shoots the gas right at the muffler when the diagram in the pump fails. (Video in the comments) This is known to have caused fires. The new style pump has a vent tube to direct away from the muffler if it has problems. My assistant helped on her own Deere.

Address

Saint Joseph, MI
49085

Telephone

+2694148589

Website

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