My very old Danarm petrol hedge cutter has started leaking petrol slightly from the junction where the pipes exit the tank. The problem seemed to be with the rubber bung, bit like a grommet, through which the fuel feed and return pipes exit and re-enter the tank - I thought it had hardened with age - otherwise the machine is in excellent condition. When I had my gardening squad, although I did all my own maintenance and repairs I had a very good relationship with Jim Melvin who owned the local repair service for garden machinery. He'd have been my first stop for parts but, unfortunately, shut up shop some years ago. So I rang Lawnmower Services:
https://lawnmower-services.com/ a company I've been aware of for many years but have only used a couple of times. He thought it unlikely he could order a part for such an old machine - "haven't seen one of those for years" - but invited me to strip out the parts I needed and come up and have a rummage through his stock for anything that might fit. He thought the Mitox uses a similar fitment.
When I stripped it I found there's a rubber O ring which seals it and that had hardened and cracked. So today I wrapped the bung complete with it's cracked O ring, pipes and the filter in a sheet of blue workshop paper towel and put it in a plastic bag which I put in my rucksack. Jumped on the bus for the journey across town - free bus pass - and realised there was still a strong smell of petrol coming from the bag - quite handy actually because no-one sat down next to me!
When I got there the owner, Jeff, met me as I walked through the door and produced the Mitox rubber bung almost before I'd said hello. Unfortunately it was to large a diameter. However, all was not lost because he did have the correct O ring and I thought that would probably sort it. I also bought some new fuel pipe as the old stuff had hardened to concrete like hardness and a new generic filter.
As I was in a part of the city I'm not often in - although in my youth My best friend and his family lived nearby, so it's an area I know well - I paid a visit to the local library and picked up a couple of interesting looking books, one SF and one Thriller. It also let me use the "facilities", which at my age is always a great relief! Jumped on the bus again and in less than an hour I was home again.
The carb has a foam air filter which has been getting worse as the years go by and I had to remove it to gain access to the pipework and, the filter partially disintegrated! That problem was sorted by cutting a new filter from a sheet of open cell foam which I keep sheets of in different thicknesses for my horticultural machine restorations. The carb was a bit "mucky" too so I removed it from the engine and cleaned it and the air filter body up with carb cleaner aerosol which did a great job. The card type gasket has seen better days but will do for now. I know I've got several rolls of gasket paper in different thicknesses somewhere which I'll look out and make a new gasket (it also acts as a heat shield so isn't just a gasket) Then reinstalled the fittings complete with new O ring but found the fuel pipe is too thick walled to go through the hole in the grommet. Just had to rebuild with the old pipes for now. Filled it up with fuel and tipped it up to submerge the grommet - hurrah, no leaks!
Had a cup of tea then spent best part of an hour trimming up my neighbour's shrubs (her husband is disabled and quite ill and she's old like us and anyway, wouldn't be able to handle even a small hedge cutter) They've been friends and good neighbours for best part of 40 years so I help out by keeping their shrubs neat and tidy. By the time I'd finished I noticed there was a very small dampness around the grommet however close examination shows it's weeping around where the hardened return pipe goes through it. It's not what you could call a "leak" but is a "dampness" which I'll need to keep an eye on. It may go away when the whole thing settles down after being disturbed or, I may have to search out some new tubing of the correct diameter. The larger leak due to the perished O ring is completely cured.
After that I had another cup of tea, strimmed the edges around my wee lawn with my ancient "Ideal" brand 2 stroke strimmer and mowed it with another of my ancient machines, cleared up and used my leaf blower - a very old and rather noisy Echo 2 stroke - to make everything look "squeaky clean". Then a shower and I've been sitting in my back garden for about an hour with another cuppa and my library book - a thriller all about gangsters in Kyrgyzstan, no I'd no idea where that was either. The book, by Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting - is actually pretty good.
Now about to put a pizza in the oven and we're going to settle down to an evening of Eurovision - Is that sad? Probably, but I'm sure we'll have some good laughs.
