Hallo folks,
I'm working on a twelve year old mower for my neighbour which was surging badly. I agreed to have a look at for him as understandably he didn't want to spend a lot on it. The engine serial # is 10A902 2143 B1 01080954.
Apart from very low and very dirty oil (more reason not to spend a lot!) I found that the inlet manifold was broken into two close to where it bolts onto the engine. In my view the likely cause of the damage was that the front tank mounting bolt had been absent for some time, it was eventually replaced by an undersized hex cap screw and nut. I'm guessing that the full weight of the fuel tank was being passed up the inlet manifold along with a lot of vibration until it protested by breaking.
I tried to find a replacement inlet manifold locally, but the only ones available had the wrong angle of tube to mounting bolts. I've glued the bits together with 5 minute Araldite and left it to cure overnight before trying out the repaired part.
Has anyone tried repairing this part with Araldite before? If so did the 'repair' withstand the engine being started and run? I'm just trying to see if the engine will run reasonably without a massive air leak before worrying about having a part ordered in. (I reckon the inlet manifold has the part number 693446 as according to my reading of the serial number the build date is before 03080400.)
Looking forward to knowing if I should re-assemble with the glued up inlet manifold and if so what "mileage" might result. (Guess I don't have much to lose )
Cheers,
Roger