I am lawnmower king!

[HarleyDog]

(04-20-2019, 11:45 AM)fredtoast Wrote: Years ago I was visiting my parents and helped mow the lawn. After lunch the mower would not start. I am not much of a mechanic but my dad was brilliant with anything mechanical. He worked at checking everything and could not get it to run. Small engines are actually pretty simple. He was getting spark and fuel but it would not run.

He bought a kit to rebuild the carburetor, but when he was taking it apart he noticed something funny. He could actually notice the difference in the smell of gasoline and kerosene. When I was using the mower I re-filled it with kerosene instead of gasoline. Since the engine was really hot the kerosene started and worked. But once the engine cooled down it was not hot enough to ignite the kerosene/air mixture.

My dad didn't keep his kerosene in a different colored can than his gas (I used blue and red). He just had it marked so he could tell the difference. I did not even think to look. I just grabbed a red "gascan" and filled the tank.

Similar thing happened to me. When I was 16 I needed to put water/coolant in my car radiator. So, seen a bottle of prestone in the garage and poured it in. Didn’t know my stepdad was using it as a kerosene jug. Didn’t even mark it.