At the risk of making a serious comment, I will say this:

When I was a kid (I mean, like seven or eight years old), I loved wandering around the neighborhood and hanging around in garages. No doubt, I was a real pest. Nothing was better than the guys who worked on cars. I'd hang around and bug them and ask questions and (if I was REALLY lucky) get to hand them tools...stuff like that.

There was this one guy, maybe six doors down, who had this old lawn mower. It had quit running years before, and he had a new one, but for whatever reason, he never threw away the old one. It just sat there in the corner.

He was one of the "hang around in the garage on a Saturday afternoon" dads in the neighborhood, so I knew him, and he knew me. One day I was walking by, he was puttering around, and I stopped in. We talked cars and stuff, and then it popped into my head that I would like his old lawn mower. So I asked him if I could have it. He said I could. Next thing my mother sees is me pushing this guys old junk lawn mower into our garage.

My dad was never really "car guy", so we didn't have a lot of tools and stuff around. But we had a few, in this old leather bag. I'd sit out in the garage for hours, pulling stuff off of the mower, then putting it back on. Each time, I got a little deeper into the motor, always a little scared that I'd never get it put back together. A lot of the bolts were on way too tight for me to get off. I'd get a box-end wrench on them and whack away with a baseball bat until they came loose.

Each time I got it put back together, I'd try starting it. And it wouldn't.

The thing had a weird starter system. Instead of pulling a rope, you wound up a handle that would then coil up a spring, then you pushed a button in the middle. If it weren't for that, I would have never been strong enough to even try it.

One time in my fiddling, I got too deep, separated the cases, and all the oil drained out all over the place. Hadn't occurred to me that there was oil in a lawn mower engine. That was kind of cool. Kept going, and eventually had the piston in my hand. Wasn't sure what to do next, but all along the way I had this idea that if I took things apart and put them back together, eventually I'd get it to start.

Took some doing, but I did eventually get it all back together. Only had a few parts left over too.

And son of a bitch if it didn't end up starting. I was shocked and more than a little scared when it finally fired off. The kitchen was right next to the garage and mom came out all freaked that I was going to kill myself.

Once I got it started, I pretty much lost interest in the old lawn mower. I don't know what happened to it. Mom probably made my dad throw it away.

Anyway, sorry if my initial response came across as "ball busting". Didn't mean it like that. That's just how I work. You look at it. You figure out in your head how it works. You figure out how it comes apart. You figure out how it goes together. If you get stuck, you sit and stare at it until you figure out what to do next. Eventually you'll get it sorted.

Haven't thought about this stuff in years, but sitting here now, 45 years later, I'm not sure I've ever been happier than I was as a seven year old kid, sitting in the garage on a summer afternoon, ****ing around with an old lawn mower.

 

Just wanted to say for the record that I have pretty thick skin and took all comments in good fun, like I'm sure they were intended. So no hard feelings here.

Oh, and I actually laughed at the blind in 1 ear comment

 

You will do fine here.......

 

Glad you got it fixed.