Thursday 28th February 2008.
I only use the rotovator over a couple month period in the early spring, the rest of the time it sits redundant. My good friends Kevin and Jane who run the turkey farm are keen gardeners and twice a year they use my rotovator to give the veggie garden the once over. Most of the year it spends it's time in their garage until I need it again.
Today equipped with a couple of scaffold planks I drove the van around to their garage to pick it up, I was met by Kevin and Jane and their car was put outside to make room. Although it sits for such a long period, it always starts fairly easily. In a joint effort, Kevin switched on the petrol , slid the choke lever to on and I pulled the starter rope and pulled the starter rope and pulled the starter rope! No joy.
Kevin then unscrewed the petrol tank cap and looked in and with a shake of the machine, declared there was 1/4 a tank of fuel. I Pulled the rope again and again until I started to see stars and we then dragged the rotovator up the scaffold planks instead of driving it!
Back at the tunnels, I started stripping and checking various components to try and find the reason why there was no life in the rotovator. After a while I removed the carburetor bowl where the petrol collects prior to entering the engine. I am aware of the fact that sometimes after a lay up, petrol tends to 'go off' while sat in and aluminum carb. Removing the bowl, I found that the fuel was looking a little thick, so I tipped it away and refitted the bowl, turned on the petrol and pulled the start rope again. NO JOY!
For some reason I decided to remove the fuel bowl again, I saw their was a tiny piece of dirt in the bottom!!......................... but no fuel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I turned on the petrol tap and nothing flowed!
I removed the fuel cap and looked into an empty tank!!!!!!!!!!!!
I poured in some unleaded fuel.
Pulled the rope and it started first time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Never trust a turkey breeder!