The Horse Runs Again!!!

You have to understand that this Horse tiller is supposed to be my winter project.  In my mind, I needed a nice, long project.  My goal was to completely strip down the unit, sandblast it in my (as yet unpurchased) blast cabinet, rebuild and restore the engine, and paint the tiller to look like new.

Over the course of a couple of months.

So I couldn't fully explain how I was ripping apart the tiller just minutes after I arrived at home!

Hmmm, no spark.  Let's take a look.

The engine turned over freely.  So I decided to pull off the engine shroud.

"The engine is fixed!"  That was my first response anyway.  It was a statement in surety.  The engine, of course, wasn't actually fixed, and I still had some work to do, but with one pull of the shroud, I clearly stared at the problem:  a mouse!

Sometime between spring and fall, a mouse had called the engine home.  And in so doing, he chewed up anything and everything he could find in the previous owner's shed, not the least of which was the grounding wire (and magneto wire) for the engine.  As soon as I saw the exposed threads, I knew that was what was happening.  The engine was constantly dead...always dead!  It HAD to be dead!  For every time the rope was pulled, the spark would not go, for the mouse had grounded out the engine.  The spark went through the exposed ground wires, into the frame, and the sparkplug had no spark!

The mouse had called the tiller home!

The culprit.  These wires were grounding out the spark coming off the magneto.

Such a large bed the mouse had made!

After removing the bedding, you could see just how much wire had been eaten away.

The mouse had even bit through the magneto wire.  Fortunately, no wires were showing, so I just taped this back up.

I pulled out the massive bedding from the mouse, not sure I wasn't going to find the mouse in the mess, too.  I sent off a text to Dad, "Problem found."  And I started figuring out what needed to be done.  It looked like all I needed to do was replace the ground wire with a new one!  I examined the kill switch, and it functioned properly.  I just needed a new wire and two spade plugs.  I asked Dad if he had any, and Mom and Dad came over to watch me resurrect the beast.  Dad supplied some wire, and I put it back together.  I tested the spark.  A perfect blue!!!

I wheeled the tiller out to my driveway, and would you believe it started on the first pull?!  I was ecstatic!  In just a few hours, this dead Horse was now alive again.  I tested out the gears.  Forward worked.  Reverse worked.  The tines worked.  It was time to test it out for real.  I took it to my backyard and decided to throw down a piece of yard for the cause just to test it out.  It didn't do much!  I adjusted the depth gauge, realizing the tines barely hit.  And it just turned over that black soil like you wouldn't believe.  No lunging.  No jumping.  Just churning over topsoil.

You can't tell it in this photo, but the ol' Horse is smiling.  She is alive again!!!

I have a new Horse!!!  I can't wait to put it to work.