To clean your lawn mower, you’ll need a mix of simple daily equipment and specialized ones such as: cleaning table, gloves, soap, cleaning brushes and cloth, an all-purpose cleaning spray, a drier, air blower, scrubber, garden hose reel, engine degreaser, machine lubrication, brake cleaners, and wire brush. If some parts are damaged or corroded such as blades, plugs, filters, fuel lines, or carburetors, get a replacement for those mower parts.
The rest of the article will go on in detail of the steps to disassemble your mower in order to clean it, and how you can use the aforementioned cleaning equipment for which parts of your lawn mower and make sure it works smoothly for a long time.
Why is It Necessary to Clean Your Lawn Mower from Time to Time?
Lawn mowers, like any other machinery also faces wear and tear along with other problems related to clogging and overheating; most of which are caused by the debris of grass clippings and dirt that accumulate in the various parts of the mower such as the engine, filter, under deck, fuel lines, carburetor, and cutting blades, causing overheating, machine damage, disease outbreak, and corrosion.
For this reason, it’s important to clean your lawn mower once a month for it to work smoothly and to make sure that the overheating does not continue over long periods of time as it can be dangerous to the person using the machinery as well as incur additional cost to replace the lawn mower entirely.
How Should I Disassemble My Lawn Mower?
Lay your mower onto a flat surface (the floor or a cleaning table) and turn off the engine first. Remove the gas tank, turn off the fuel tap, and prop the lawn mower so that it’s tilted onto its side on the flat surface (this will make it easier for you to clean the lower deck of your mower)
Then subsequently remove the part of the engine that needs cleaning – engine, fuel line, carburetor.
The Underside of My Mower Deck is Clogged, How Do I Clean It?
After propping your mower, remove the filter of the underside and spray the grass clipping debris stuck to the underside filter with a water hose to make it easier to scrape it off using a scrubber or a wooden scalpel.
Clean off the grass debris and any excess dirt using cleaning spray, cloth and brushes, and air dry the mower parts, also make sure to wear gloves beforehand to avoid dirtying your hands.
What Do I Use to Clean my Mower’s Engine?
Remove the engine screen first and make sure that your engine is entirely cold before you start spraying it with water using a garden hose reel. If any of the plugs are corroded there’s no need to wash them. Just replace them instead.
As for the other parts, after cleaning and brushing off the excess dirt using a bristle brush and drying the engine off using a blower, you also have to grease/lubricate them using an engine greaser to avoid rusting.
Is It Necessary to Clean the Engine Spark Plugs of my Mower?
Dirty spark plugs may cause overheating and machine damage, in this case it’s necessary to clean or replace them. Remove the wire plug from the lawn mower, spray the plug with brake cleaner and clean it off with a cloth, also don’t forget to use a wire brush to clean the plug wiring and threads.
Does My Mower’s Fuel System Need Cleaning or Not?
According to The Daily Gardener, if your fuel lining is clogged, making a lot of noise upon starting and getting in the way of providing your lawn mower with the fuel that you put in it, then it’s high time you clean your fuel system.
Check the fuel valve and gas tank, if the tank is damaged replace it, if not, proceed towards cleaning the fuel lines using an air blower.
How Should I Clean My Lawn Mower’s Blades?
This is a relatively simple task as all you need to do is prop the lawn mower onto its side and then rinse off the blades with some cold water using a garden hose, you can also sharpen up the blades using a blade sharpener.
Since the blades are sharp you need to put on gloves before handling them, in case you need to scrape off any grass debris stuck to them by hand.
My Carburetor is Corroded, Should I Replace It or Keep Using the Same One?
Machine parts that get corroded are not feasible to keep using since they can cause the whole machine to break down at any given moment in the future. According to Simple Green, if your carburetor is not corroded, clean it with a carburetor cleaner and leave it to dry, otherwise replace it if it’s corroded.
Why is Replacing Mower Parts Better Than Re-using Them?
If your mowing equipment is corroded beyond repair or broken, it’s better to replace it rather than keep using it as that will increase the risk of the machine breaking down or causing overheating, being an active hazard to the people using the mower. Faulty mower parts will also cause corrosion and rusting in other parts of the lawn mower for example the engine, if left to be reused.
Why is It Important to Dry Your Mower Parts Before Re-assembling?
Drying your mower parts reduces the risk of shock to the user when you re-use the mower as water is a good conductor of electricity. Wet mower parts also increase the risk of accumulating more grass and dirt debris and they stick to wet parts easier than dry ones, increasing your cleaning effort in the future.
How Careful Should I Be When Cleaning My Mower?
It’s important to exercise extra care when handling equipment that uses fuel and electricity because of the volatile nature of energy resources. For this reason, it’s advised that you make sure the engine is off and not warm before disassembling.
Also point the switch of the mower towards the sky instead of the ground (to minimize electric shock risks) and, while handling blades, wear gloves to protect your hands from being cut.
