The Bench Racers Journal

[Terry Bentley]

Chapter 29

Since the Indy 500 pre-race coverage had been cancelled due to rain, that time slot in TV land had been filled with previous coverage and the usual reruns.

Over the last few years , I had always looked forward to watching every episode of Lassie. Jeff Miller had moved to the city and left Lassie to his friend Timmy Martin on the farm. In real life I could never abandon my dog.

But it was Lassie who made that tough and final decision to stay with Timmy. Over the next couple of years Timmy and Lassie ran into problems and got in all sorts of trouble together. But one episode I missed that only had been aired last December.

Today this very particular episode "The Big Race" was playing again. I thought it was very fitting since it was such a monumental weekend for racing.

Timmy and his friend Willie decided to build a racing kart. It was a Go-Kart 800 kit. Seems odd that the family just barely had enough money to scrape by on, but....They could afford this kart package. It cost $129. Thats a lot of money. Especially for a toy. A very fast toy tho. Maybe Timmy finally broke in to his piggy bank.

Another big surprise. Like nobody would see this coming. They managed to scrounge up  an old spare lawn mower engine. Not just any lawn mower engine mind you. But a McCulloch lawn mower engine. I knew McCulloch had made a lawn mower...but it was powered by a Westbend engine. This engine was a real Mc10. It even came equipped with a clutch. There was a Palmini ram air horn on the carburetor that looked something like an ancient wide mouthed blunder-buss. The motor was also bolted to an angle mount that happened to fit the kart perfectly.  How lucky could Timmy get? From lawn mower to gokart without any modifications.

The local track Timmy raced on was only a dirt oval. It was even close enough to just drive the kart there. Out there in the country where your next door neighbors lived miles apart, you could just hop in the kart and putt-putt your way to the track. Can it get any more perfect? Gotta love Hollywood.

Something else I always thought was odd. I liked to watch the show Fury too. Just like Lassie came on every week. It is about a kid my age with an awesome horse named Fury. What caught my attention was how similar the two ranches looked alike on both Lassie and Fury. They actually looked identical. Maybe just a coincidence I dont know.

I had worked on a McCulloch mower recently. Steves dad picked up one a few years ago at a garage sale for cheap. Not that great of an investment as he soon found out. It looked almost brand new, but wasnt running at that time. Fortunately the motor was very solid and reliable, mostly. Well almost. Some times. Ok not really at all. Not too bad on power for its size, this Westbend engine had proved its worth in other stationery applications. But not so much here on a lawn mower.



I actually had found one of these McCulloch mowers last summer. Helping dad with a trip to the local dump. Sitting there is all its lack of glory. I recognized it immediately. From earlier magazines featuring the very first karts and what was used for a motor. It was in sad shape. I couldnt resist. It came back home with me. Unfortunately it was locked up solid. That crankshaft was now a permanent part of the block.

The little engine when attached to a lawn mower base had a bad tendency to seize up the crankshaft pto bushing. There was a long snout hanging down to help support crankshaft and load from the cutting blade. Sometimes the seal would work its way loose or just fail altogether. Getting good flow of lubrication down there seemed to be a problem. Seems that cutting overgrown weeds were not a good idea. Imagine a lawn mower not being able to cut high grass? Hmm. Sometimes when cutting tall Johnson grass, it would get wrapped around the crankshaft and just wreak havoc on that little seal.



Already a couple of times now I had disassembled that mower and replaced that bushing. This was what the problem turned out to be the very first time. I even had to replace the crankshaft. The crank had twisted and nearly sheared off we found out after he bought it. During assembly, I even cross drilled some extra holes hoping to get better lubrication there.

This last time I got really brave with a not very educated hypothesis of mine. I thought about some way of getting gas/oil mix down there on the pto side crank trying to bypass the carburetor.

Last year I found an older Clinton chainsaw in someones trash pile. Obviously the first thing I did was tear it completely down just to see how it was made. After banging my head against the wall finally figured out how this carb did what it did. But I got the idea from here and tried to adapt the concept to Steves dads basket case mower.

The idle circuit was actually an indirect path that bypassed throttle valve and first lubricated the crank pto bushing and needle bearing on flywheel side. What was really odd is how the Tillotson carburetor accomplished this by running the idle circuit thru a small hole drilled next to the pulse hole for fuel pump. The pulse hole was plugged and not in use. Instead crankcase pressure was routed directly to the middle stack on carb. Fed by a hose connected to the intake manifold. This carb was your normal looking Tillotson but had an odd way of routing everything to make it work.




Without discussing this with Steves dad, I tee'ed into the fuel line to carburetor. Then using 1/8" copper tubing and brass fitting, ran a line down and fed the bushing directly. After connecting everything together I ran into a bigger problem than was expecting. Now the engine was running way too rich and wouldnt idle long before  loading up and die. Several attempts to resolve this failed. 

But I came up with one thing that finally showed big promise. Leaning down the low speed needle on carburetor helped out greatly. The needle was nearly closed before the motor would at least try not to flood out as bad. But now it would not rev up.

The next modification I did was add a shut off valve on that fuel tee. Now I could control the amount of fuel running down to the pto bearing. I had narrowed down the issue to the low speed jetting now must now be way off. Obviously since I am bypassing the idle circuit completely and feeding fuel directly into the crankcase. But due to my inexperience and complete lack of knowledge, isnt working as I had first thought.

It was time to get brave or chew bubblegum. And I dont like  Double Bubble. Another brain fart popped into my head. I didnt know if it would work or not, but only one way to find out. It was during the winter when I had plenty of time to tinker on the mower.

I disassembled the carburetor and traced out the fuel circuit. Using Marine Tex Epoxy I plugged up the small orifice in low speed circuit that controlled idle.

Now I was in uncharted territory in my limited knowledge of small engines. Was not sure if what I was thinking would work or burn up this fairly new but completely unreliable mower. How could I get blamed if it failed again?  And again? This had been the only thing consistent about the mower so far.

I fired up the engine and crossed my fingers. By adjusting the extra shutoff that fed fuel down to crank bushings, I could get the engine to idle now. Actually idling smoothly. I rev'ed it up but would hesitate and nose over too much.

If I opened up the low speed needle a lot, would fix the hesitation, but now engine was loading up too much. I kept working between these two adjustments until engine was running well. My confidence was riding high and felt the problem may have finally been resolved.

A small amount of fuel was now being pulled in thru the bypass line and had to lubricate the pto bushing first. This was what now replaced the low speed circuit. Well more or less. For now I say more. Good confidence boost. you know. One downside I noticed immediately is the choke had to be relied on heavily just to get it started now. Otherwise not much difference. Except the bushing was not brazing itself to crankshaft anymore.

There was always a downside when repairing this mower. Steves dad was very happy now that is was working. On the other hand, Steves mom would give me that death stare. She runs a tight ship under that roof. Time spent constantly fixing things over and over dont fly with her. Fix it once or find a replacement, so time and money are not wasted repeatedly.

She was so sick and tired of the problems this mower had given. She had already decided this mower needed to be replaced with a new one. Repairing it was not something she considered an option anymore. But I put a kink in her decision to replacing it.

When she would finally make up her mind about certain things, then it usually became law in that house. This is not a place I liked to find myself. And not the first time I had crossed this line here either. This must mean what is said about being stuck between a rock and a hard spot.

It seems that Steves dad had also been interested and reading those kart magazines. There was an advertisement for Steens synthetic oil. All kinds of claims were made about it. Steves dad had made a call to the company. After some back and forth about the problems this mower had been experiencing, he decided to purchase the oil. John Steen had all but guaranteed his oil would resolve the problems with the failed pto bushing. Especially on this particular motor. He had a lot of experience with the issues and had helped out Duffy Livingston a few years earlier with the exact same troubles. He highly recommended the Steens "C" synthetic oil.



Steves dad was so completely sold on the assurance from John, he insisted I remove all of my improvised repairs and put it back to the way it originally was.

I was very skeptical at first, but gave in to his demands. I tried to make every effort to improve on anything that could help as the engine was reassembled.

After the mower was back to the way it was, I completely disappeared for the afternoon. Did not want to be there if this oil was a complete failure. Sure enough that engine did its job over and over again. That synthetic oil cost about $7 a gallon. Yikes. A normal quart at 7-11 is only thirty-nine cents. At first this doesnt seem to pan out on cost, just to keep that mower running. But with the regular motor oil it took 16 ounces to a gallon. The synthetic only took 4 ounces. That did bring the average operational costs back down considerably, but still a little bit expensive on paper.

With each passing week when Steve cut the grass, I was expecting a call afterwards. But as of now the oil is proving to be superior to anything else that we knew was available. With that two cycle mower it really just plows thru any patch of grass. Doesnt bog or lug down like the normal 4 stroke usually operating a mower these days.

John Steen even boasted about Richie Ginther using Steens "C" oil in his Ferrari 250 GT at some SCCA race in Palm Springs back during the 1958 season.



Richie was leading the race with two laps remaining, and cutting a turn too tight had unknowingly torn off the oil drain plug from the engine. Richie still ended up winning that race. When the engine was later torn down to check for damage, there was no signs of any scoring to the bearings, pistons, or cylinders. What argument can you give to that kind of testimony?



Now there was one really major bummer to all of this. Steves dad didnt want the Steens catalog when his order was shipped. The catalog was free with order but postage would have cost an extra 15 cents, because it had to be mailed separately in an envelope. Oil was the only thing he was interested in from them. Arrgh!