Introduction
With summer almost coming to an end now, it is time to start thinking about how to maintain the condition and performance of all your garden machinery and tools, with more emphasis on your lawnmower obviously. Read on for our helpful tips to make sure the condition of your petrol lawnmower doesn’t deteriorate before you need to use it again.
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Accessing the Underside of the Lawnmower
A key thing to make sure you do in the autumn season is to inspect your lawnmower vigorously. This includes inspecting the underside for any potential damage or debris. Our tip for this is to make sure that you always lift the lawnmower up from the front and not any other way, so that the spark plug is pointing upwards. Never turn the lawnmower on its side, otherwise it will allow the fuel from the carburettor to enter the air filter. This will become a serious issue as this will make it difficult for you to start your machine and even potentially lead to terminal contamination of the air filter.
Always Store Your Lawnmower on a Dry, Flat Surface
This is a critical thing to remember to do as if you store your lawnmower against or hang it on a wall, oil will be directed to parts of the engine where it is unwelcome and cause unnecessary problems for you to deal with. Nevertheless, don’t forget to make sure the flat surface is dry for the same reason.
Check and Lubricate all the Cables
Ensure that your cables are in alignment of where they should be and that they’re properly fastened and in ‘top’ condition.
Drain any Excess Fuel/Oil from the Tank
Before you store away your lawnmower for the autumn, make sure you drain any leftover fuel that is still in the tank. Fuel gets stale and declines in terms of performance over time and can also have long-term effects on your machine itself. Also, this is an ideal opportunity for you to change the oil in your machine and ideally should be done annually or after every 50 hours of use. To remove the oil, make sure the engine is warm before either draining the excess oil by removing the oil drain plug from under the engine or tipping it out from the top of the machine, but make sure to remove the air filter first to avoid contamination issues which have been explained above.
Inspect Your Cutting Blade
This is very important and something that we strongly recommend you do. Make sure you inspect your machine for any potential damage or signs of rusting on your cutting blades. If this isn’t done, then it will most likely lead to both short-term and long-term performance loss of the machine and therefore the appearance of your lawn will also suffer.
Keep the Drive Mechanism in Excellent Condition
We strongly advise anyone to regularly remove the belt cover off their machine and clear any grass clippings and other debris to make sure the condition of the drive belt doesn’t decline and therefore making sure the performance of your lawnmower doesn’t drop either. Furthermore, it’s important to make sure that the drive cable is adjusted correctly to avoid further consequences when in use.
Conclusion
These are just some of the most important tips that we recommend for you to do in the autumn to make sure that there is no drop whatsoever in the performance of your petrol lawnmower and the final appearance of your lawn itself also. If you tick of all of these off over the autumn, then you will undoubtedly reap the benefits in the longer term.