OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Tech Talk whirlwind tiller made by masport

I have a whirlwind tiller here, 8ci briggs motor. Well 2 of them actually.


Its made by masport, sticker on it says so, i would assume that parts are available??? Same as an older 'home gardner'

It appears that the gearbox is seized on the one i have in the shed at the moment. Is that what happens when the worm gear craps out???

Bob, unless someone actually has one of these and can answer from experience, the only way to get a discussion going on it would be by posting some pictures and details. That way at least the information will end up in the archives, even if you have to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself, to resolve the problems.

Ummmm theres not much to take a picture of.
I got the 3Hp Horizontal going that i was going to use on it. On its side, flywheel off, sorted the points, a bit of fuel down the carb and off it went.

Got the tiller motor came off, wasnt seized, put it on its side in the vice, flywheel off points sorted back together and has spark, sat it aside.
Pulled all the tines etc off.
Its now standing up on its nose and im dosing the tube up with WD40 trying to get it apart as its seized and i cant seperate the gearbox/input from the frame.

Then i suppose i will have to have a go at stripping the gearbox.


Nothing to see, its just a box of parts and a skeleton.

OK got it apart.
Bluffed my way through it.

Input shaft seal had let water in.
Was seized in the bushing.



Its got gunk in it.


Gears OK thank goodness.




I suppose the first thing i need to know, how critical is the clearance between the bush and shaft on the input??? Will I have to rebush it?

Bearing is still OK.
I will get 3 new seals for it. Probably spedi sleeve to go on the nose of the input.


Can i buy the correct thickness gasket for the side housing??? Or will i have to find some paper and cut my own. The gasket paper i have her is way thicker.

What oil is it meant to be filled with???

Cheers, Bob.

Bob, the shafts need to have good bushes/bearings because that is what holds them central, which is essential if you hope to make the oil seals work. There is a good chance the water entry happened because the input shaft oil seal couldn't cope with the loose (worn) bush. The bushes/bearings also control the proper center distance, and therefore meshing, of the worm and worm-wheel. So, you need to replace what is worn out.

I have no idea whether you can buy a gasket, but if you go to Repco or somewhere similar you should be able to choose a suitable gasket material, and cut your own.

The type of lubricant you use in gearboxes depends somewhat on the operating speed of the input shaft. If it runs at engine speed (3,000 rpm) that is out of the ideal speed range for grease, and requires oil. In general, thin (low viscosity) oils are only used when there are hydraulics involved, or an inherently weak mechanism. Many car gearboxes use SAE30 oil just because the synchronisers cannot handle the drag torque caused by heavier (SAE90 usually) oil. Other, better gearboxes use straight SAE90 oil. In this case, for a simple worm gear running at 3,000 rpm, SAE90 sounds about right. If it was only 1,000 rpm, you'd probably use SAE140.

The next issue is to inspect carefully for any copper/brass/bronze parts in the gearbox, or any sealed bearings. These items cannot stand hypoid gear oil (commonly called Extreme Pressure, or EP). EP oils have substantial amounts of sulphur added to them, to act as an anti-seize compound between sliding metal parts. You can recognise the sharp, unpleasant smell of oils containing sulphur. If you have no copper-based alloys or rubber parts, you might as well use ordinary EP90 automotive rear axle oil: it won't do any measurable harm, it's much easier to get, and it helps keep the worm from seizing onto the wormwheel (there are high sliding velocities involved, and sometimes extreme conditions when something digs into a water pipe and tries to lock up the tiller).

Having said all that, why not ask the manufacturer what lubricant to use? That is the safest, and usually the easiest, way.

Thanks for the info about the EP oil.


Theres 3 bushes, either brass or bronze. So i will have to use different oil.



I got seals.
2x 460481N
1x 460467N


And the spedi sleeve kit CR99076 This was nearly $35.


Im going to put it together without seals and see what sort of slop that input shaft has.

If need be i will get it machined down and collared or get a bush made up.


Cheers, bob.

Sounds as if you have it under control, Bob. Lip seals cannot deal with either off-center or eccentric shafts. I also had the impression your shaft might have surface roughness in the area where the seal lip runs against it. That will both wear the seal lip, and leak oil. You need to smooth it out without making it eccentric and with a very fine surface finish. Polishing needs to be circumferential motion: you do not want helical scratches that will cut the seal lip.

Yeah i think im getting there.

Yeah i was worried about where the seal runs too.
Expensive little sucker this thing


Big box for something so little. lol.
Theres measurements in the instructions. I will linish the end of the shaft up a bit and put the speedi sleeve on it. Probably cut the front lip off the seal as the seal and sleeve are pretty much the same size. The front lip on the seal does not even touch the speedi sleeve anyway, its like its over size.

The two side seals i got are like old as the hills. Same sizes but different brands/styles. Imperial sized seals.


Ive got some Oil here. SAE 80-90W, says GL5 too. Would that do the tick??
Ive also got SAE 90-140. No mention of the EP/Sulphur.
Its old shell oil. I bought it up for $5 a 4L container from a servo years back. Got 4 of each. Still on the 1st container of each. lol.


After the speedi sleeve is on and before the seal goes in i was going to add some oil up in the gap between the two.
Same with the side seals.
Just want to be sure that they are not dry especially that input seal as i can not see much oil working up through the bushing to lubricate it.



Got the motor fired up tonight. Damn thing smoked the shed out, good thing it was knock off time. Id say it was a gut full of oil, had the flywheel off to fiddle with the points and i layed the motor over.


had another wee bit of drama with it.


At the thin bit it was bent round 90deg. And it was twisted as well.
I had a hunt around and a 5HP quantum govenor shaft was thicker, had a few spare ones of them but couldnt use them, thought about it but the butterfly flap on the carb hasnt got much meat on it to drill out and the hole in the vane is stamped and lipped through the tin so it would have been weakened somewhat.
Found a horizontal 5HP (internally governed) motor up the back shed, its all in bits so i pinched the rod off it. Bent the end, rolled it round a screwdriver shaft to make the loop. Bent the other end and made my own. Should have taken pictures of it before i fitted it to the motor.
Good thing i had another 3Hp here to go off to get the angles right or i would have been flying blind.
Straightened up the vane. Then had to tweak the cover out a bit as theres not much room where it runs through and its right at the loop in the shaft where it comes out.

Tank had a bit of condensed brown stuff in it. Added some fresh fuel and sucked it all out.
Bit of fuel down the carb, which promptly leaked back out the choke slide, oh well the tank is clean now, lol. Three or four lots of fuel and it caught on all by itself.
Almighty squeal from the starter sprag so i shut it down. Pulled that apart and cleaned it up, 1 drop of oil and back together it went.
Then fired it up and it smoked like a chimney, rattled all the stuff on the bench floor-ward.

I was thinking something was missing from the linkage govenor setup, the throttle bar, came in to look on the computer then realised that the machine has a cable throttle on it. doh!


All good. Hopefully get it back together tomorrow.

Its got to go with me on Friday. Wont take long to get it sorted.

Just need to get some gasket paper tomorrow. I dummy assembled the gearbox tongight and it needs the paper as there is stuff all clearance.
The input shaft bush is not as tight as i would like but its not too bad. Dry its got a bit of movement, i loaded it up with engine oil and theres about .5mm

I doubt it will see that much work. And theres a spare one there. I will check out the gearbox on it.
This one is a 3HP and im thinking that the other one is a 2Hp.
It has the tank on the opposite side to the carb if i remember right. I must have bought the engine code back as i have the 2HP parts list on my PC here. Same with the 5Hp Onga and something else the old fella had at home.
Might go with this motor and the best gearbox. Motor on the other one turns over but the head bolts and the bracket for the handle on top of the head is rusted badly. Looks like its been in the weather. Tines move when you pull the cord Dad said.

Cant wait to get the motor on one with tines on it to see what it can do. See if the govenor kicks in. Im thinking i might be sadly dissapointed.

Bob.

I usually identify EP oil by the smell. Straight oil smells like oil, EP oil burns your nostrils. (Even engine oil is not straight oil, it has detergents etc. that give it an odd smell). How badly EP oil smells depends on how much sulphur it contains. They used to sell special hypoid oil for outboard leg lower gear sets that had so much sulphur it was black and smelled worse than a blocked toilet. Incidentally, EP oil doesn't eat copper quickly, it happens quite slowly. I once had a car with bronze thrust washers behind the differential's side gears, and it used EP oil. On the other hand, after 4 years it ate one of the washers, and ended up with a chunk of bronze stuck between two teeth of the crown-wheel.

For the speed you will be running at, SAE90 or SAE140 should be fine. One of the advantages of high viscosity oil is that it doesn't leak out as readily as the thin stuff. The limitation when you use something too thick (like grease) is that there is so much viscous drag that it heats up the gearbox housing and can ruin the oil and the seals by overheating. That tiny gearbox just doesn't have enough surface area to stay cool at engine speeds.

I don't like the sound of modifying that oil seal, but I haven't seen it. Some seals are double-sided: they have an oil lip on the inside and a dirt lip on the outside. That makes them last longer in a dirty environment such as yours will be encountering: the dirt seal keeps the grit away from the more delicate oil seal.

You mystified me completely with the governor problem. I don't like the idea of modifying it even slightly, since you would then need a development job to make it work properly. In the meantime, until you eventually got it sorted, it would be at risk of sticking and blowing your engine, which can be very irritating. Worst case, if you just can't get another part like the original one, my solution is to make a new part exactly like the original, so I don't have to modify any of the mating parts. As soon as you change several parts at once, you are inventing a new governor. That kind of thing is OK when you are trying to teach an old engine to do something entirely different from its original purpose, but when you are really just trying to reinvent the wheel, it is a waste of time: just make it the same as B&S did. They already wasted all that time, why do it again?

Cheers, i will give it a go.

Will be putting it all back together tonight. Hopefully.


Thats what i did with the govenor. Just made it the same as it was. Maybe it wasnt exactly the same as it is running close to the housing. The tag on the govenor vane was bent, i took an educated guess on that one.
Tried and tested it works like it should. Actually seems like the RPM is fairly low, maybe 2500-3000.

I will see if i remember to snap a pic tonight. Because its a cable throttle and the horizontal shafts usually have a square rod that works on a friction principal, its got an extra lever that when you pull the throttle out fully it it pops the choke slide out as well, its spring loaded so it automatically retracts, well without the drag of the cable it does.

More pics tonight. Hopefully of it finished.

Late for school.
Doing a warehousing for dummies course. Not real inspiring for some one who has worked in transport for more than 15 years. Need to do this one to do the next one im told.

Got see about some thinner gasket paper on the way home.
I also tend to use the non hardening permatex for most stuff so that will help with the no leaking thing too.
I will have a good sniff of the oil.
With a little more machine time it would have been the perfect cantidate for an O-ring seal in the same style as the pull starter on a power torque. Gasket will do.

Hopefully the air filters i ordered will be in as well. A couple of the 3Hp horizontals and some 4HP verticals.

Im wondering if a tiller would be better off with the paper cannister type rather than the oiled foam??
Oiled foam was what it had. Ive got a few spare cannister housings etc and a few new filters.


Bob.

It smells but it just smells like diff oil to me. lol

PDF data sheet

more info

this one mentions sulphur

Found this

Shell Dentax is a straight GL-1 gear oil: "product contains no EP additives". Chances are it will smell like oil, not like EP oil (which stinks). "Normal" rear axle oil is EP.

http://2kwy.net/pds/pdf/Dentax.pdf

There is a Dentax G, and it was SAE 80W90, but I haven't found any reference to Dentax C. If it existed, it may have been a long time ago.

Concerning air filters, it can get expensive to use a dry element in a dusty environment. You use up lots of elements.

Bearing place was no help with the oil, but i got some 0.4mm gasket paper.

Bursons were no help with the oil. When you have to let the service clerk know that 'we dont sell shell oil' is not an appropriate response, you have books for this sort of thing, you can not really expect to get any help.


Driving past a place and it have a big mobil oil sign. Had to ring a bell and the lady buzzed me in. Guy at the top of the stairs had all sorts of books. Dentax C is a 140 grade oil. 460 API i think it was. GL-2. 'but we only sell it in 20L'. he seemed t o think i could just use the spirax that i had as the sulphur is only an issue if there is water present, but i didnt want to chance it.

Went to the mower shop. No clue there.

Went to the oil place i usually get my engine oils from (western oil in Berkshire road Sunshine) he did a bit of a check. Got one of the guys to come down out of the office. He showed me the chart in the book. Spiral drive gear oil. Blah Blah, they just happend to have an opened (damaged) 205L drum of mobil 600 series oil which is just the stuff i need. So im grabbing 5L of it. $33.

Apparently a close close match to it is the roadranger oil. It comes in 90 and 140 weights. But its synthetic and only comes in 205 or 20L. Hellishly expensive too.

I needed some SAE90 gear oil, not EP, a few years ago and had to go to a supplier of vintage car bits and pieces to get it. He sold me a 4 litre container of Penrite Transoil 90 Straight Gear Oil. It was the right stuff, but it cost about 50% more than EP90 would have. It is odd really, because quite a lot of manual transmissions that require SAE90 oil have bronze synchronisers, and certainly shouldn't have EP oil in them, but that is all home mechanics can get, so they use it. A couple of years later I picked up the last 5 litres of dregs of a 205 litre drum of straight 90 in the liquidation sale of a petrol station for $2. I also could have got both of my favourite stick welders for 30 bucks each, but unfortunately I already had them both (for four times that, from farm clearing sales). In the end, you have to buy things when you need them, not when the price is right.

At least you've got the oil you need now, and it will take you a while to use up 5 litres.

True enough.

I just hope it all goes together sweet. Ive only got tomorrow evening to get it done.

Heres the govenor rod i had to make up.
Can also see the auto choke rod.
Business end of the cable goes in where the govenor spring goes.

I got my stick welder off eBay a couple of years back. Cost me $70. $220 amp 3 phase thing. Works awesome. Easy worth tiwce that just as scrap.

Plunger broke off. Some of the welds inside are not too nice. It used to go down to 20amps and with a 2mm electrode you could weld exhaust pipe. Since i welded it up inside it only goes about 40amps. Its ten times the welder my little CIG arc one is.

Not too sure how its going to get on.

Smoked the shed out again. lol

Sounds like it's time to diagnose what is causing the smoke, Bob. Is the smoke blue? If so, it's oil smoke. For oil smoke, check it isn't over-filled with oil. Test compression with and without a spoonful of oil through the plughole. Look at the breather valve in the valve chest cover. It is also just possible to have good compression even if someone broke or incorrectly installed the oil ring.

If it is black smoke, of course, it is petrol smoke and you need to take a hard look at the carburetor, especially if it is auto choke or a Pulsa-Jet. Not hard to fix, if you follow the manual precisely.

The only 220 amp stick welder I can remember was a Peerless. I had one and was so disappointed I donated it to the local steam club. (They seem to be rather pleased with it, though.) On test the 220 amps turned out to be 180, and to get it that high the choke had to be dismantled and removed completely, not just pulled out fully. It also gave a rather rough arc. I have an old (about 1960, from before CIG bought the company) EMF Transarc 230 that shows what a stick welder can really do. Smoothest arc I've ever used, and when it is set for 230 amps it will undercut inch plate with a 4 mm stick. Real amps, not pretend amps. Of course there is no way it can be called portable - sits on 4 roller-bearing wheels, and it's a fairly heavy lift for 2 guys. (Even the choke's rotary adjustment seems to be on ball bearings, with click positions every amp, they built them right in those days.) It only goes down to 30 amps, even on high voltage, so I keep an old pie-warmer as my sheet-metal welder. That is another 1950s EMF, but with a Pilot-Arc. The Pilot-Arc is a spark-gap radio transmitter attached to the electrode. When you put the stick within 5 mm of the workpiece, a continuous radio-frequency spark jumps between the two. As you bring the stick closer to the workpiece it turns into a serious arc: no striking, no contact, no sticking. Just what you want for sheet metal. It has a current range from 12.5 amps to 200. It works well enough so that I've never seriously considered buying a MIG welder.

That pilot arc sounds like a good bit of kit.

Was the peerless a 3 phase?? I think mine is a peerless, ive got no complaints. I thought it was a bit dud when i first got it but then one day i worked out it was on 80V special welding rather than the regular 50v or whatever it was meant to be. Worked sweet after that.



The oil was way over full. I drianed it all out and filled it with some new SAE30, i think i might have wasted my oil. Smokes worse. Its a grey blue smoke i think. Its only been dark when i have run it. See how it goes. Its all back together now. I would say the rings are shot.


Ive got another good 3HP motor here. That can go on it if it has too.


Heres the speedi sleeve installed on the gearbox.



Ive had it outside running.
All i have here is gravel. It dug a hole. No hint of stalling out. Took a bit of effort to hang onto it too.


Will get some pics on the weekend, might even see if i can get a video of the old boy making a hole with it.