I was given thisBriggs & Stratton model ZZ engine from a fan for a future project. it was given to him but never got it running. so how about you pull up a chair hold the flashlight and see if we can get it to run.
@@simonchaddock3694 things nowadays are certainly lower quality, but the Second World War led to a lot of advancements in technology that resulted in better products, since they needed to produce engines and whatnot for the war. Unfortunately, companies seem to think they have some sort of right to keep making money selling the same shit over and over again.
Mustie1, You are the ultimate engine doctor! You amaze me with your ability to get these old engines running. Nicely done, and I love the sound of that old Briggs!
Found your channel about 1 month ago & am thoroughly impressed on how knowledgeable and fearless you are. I've watched about 30 of your vids and it doesn't seem to matter what equipment or vehicle it is your up for the challenge. I find it fascinating especially in this day and age where good mechanics are a dying breed. You have an inquisitive mind, a "knack" for troubleshooting and more importantly a gift for repairing stuff from the most simple to the more complex. Great stuff.....be well and tx for entertaining and teaching us.
Nice to see it running I had it for 5 years and just never got to messing with. I knew you would get it going. I hope you make something real cool with it. I'm trying to get the ID plate for you.
Great fun watching you resurrect old engines. Being able to take something apart cleanup and making it run again. Nothing like the throw away stuff we have these days. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
35 years ago my father in law worked for a strip mine that was changing over from B&S to Wisconsin for their utility engines and literally threw out all the existing B&S parts and left over engines. including parts for some of the Z series engines. We were able to put together 5 working industrial engines and built three log splitters with them since the engines are built for stationary applications that need high torque and long run times. One of the old engines we fixed had a tag on it that said " locked up" and it turned out that someone had crushed the shroud into the flywheel and once freed the engine fired right up. Coal mines were a great source for tools & materials since they threw anything away if they weren't using them. They bought some electric impacts once but they only place they could use them was in the small vehicle maintenance garage so brand new they put them in the dumpster. I used that Rockwell impact for years for busting lugnuts loose.
Sounds like my David Bradley walk behind I thought the continental engine was seized for years here it had a bolt stuck in the flywheel wish I would have known this 17 years ago
I always enjoy the vids in which a 50-70+ year old engine is coaxed back to life. Those old engines may not be as efficient as today's ohv engines, but they sure were simple, durable, overbuilt and easy to maintain and repair with a few simple hand tools
Sadly most of those old engines are now more fuel efficient than pretty much all of these modern emissions complaint ones. Back in the day all the big name engine manufactures bragged about their Hp/Hrs per gallon numbers. Today that's the last thing engine manufacturers want you to see because emissions compliance regulations makes them nothing worth bragging about.
Mustie, I’ve learnt more in a day watching your videos, than I learnt in a lifetime of reading manuals. Absolutely brilliant buddy......keep them coming sir.
Always a pleasure to tag along with you repairing and running the almost impossible engines and the world’s worse chainsaws. You transfer your confidence to all of us who need help and good advice about the way to fix our weekend toys. You are the best of the best. M
"Carburetor float for a 1943 Briggs? Sure, I have one over here!" Gotta love the stash! Neat old engine! Beefy too! It's spitting fire! Can't wait to see it on something down the road! (Loving the captioning you're doing, Mustie!)
Same too, but the title really needs to be addressed. On this channel it's not a case of "will it run?" because it will! It's more a case of "when will it run?"
The whole process reminds me of when I was a kid,(50 + years) when I worked on go karts engines. They were pretty straight forward and if you took your time and eliminated problems one by one you could get the darn things to run. Thanks for the video, it reminded me of my childhood!
I just want to say that there are women that watch your channel as well. I enjoy watching you repair these machines, allows me to brush up on my knowledge without having to get greasy myself. :P Thank you =)
When I was 12 my little bro and I found a bunch of 16hp iron Briggs singles. I got one started and it was stuck full speed on concrete garage floor......it went crazy chipping cement knocking stuff over no exhaust...we ran out of shop.....lol
Well...that bets the time I blew up the garage floor. Twice. I had no idea that concrete will explode if you hold a torch to it for an extended period. Dad wasn't too mad about the first one....it was the second one that got his goat.
LOL definitely I had an old f150 with a miss and couldn't find it. I had it running while checking over things. Reached up and touched the boot on the coil wire going to the distributor and found a crack in the boot where it was letting the spark jump and grounding out. My arm hurt so bad the rest of the day lol
I got zapped by an old rototiller when I was a kid. To shut it off there was a metal strip you pushed over onto the top of the plug to ground it out. I was maybe 5 years old and trying to be my dad's assistant, I just grabbed the thing and wasn't real careful where my hand was going.... ZAP! That's one of my earliest memories and one I'll probably never forget.
How are these small engines able to run for a few seconds (I counted about 20 power strokes) by squirting gas in the head? Why isn't it being pushed out just by pulling the rope? Then when it fires, why doesn't a single power stroke just completely push all the gas out of the engine? This fuel is being put directly into the combustion chamber and not the intake manifold.
You want a wake up call, try a taste test from a Model T ignition coil. JK! Science class had one hooked up to a vacuum tube for a demonstration of plasma and magnetic fields. I happened to reach over it where the HV lead was at... POW! I was yelping and jumping up and down that HURT! Glad few others saw that and not the whole class.
if you need a good weed eater shindaiwa t302 or ? they are made the same as years ago except fer the old carb is better but one can buy that style via ebay after the new goes bad i guess
I use to go around on junk days and pick up all the lawn mowers bring them home get them going and sell them for 50 bucks usually it's something small to get the thing going again. I use to sell them so fast at 50 bucks I could not keep up people would come and want to buy one when I sold them all I made lot's of money of lawn mowers and got all of them for free some would give me there old mower and by one off me and I would have the one they gave me running the next day ready to be sold LOL!!
No such thing as a 'disposable' engine. 9 times out of 10 they stop running due to a fault so simple a kid could fix it. Unfortunately these days, the average citizen struggles putting the right fuel in the tank..
Nice old low torque engine, and I had one on a 1940's 'scooter' which was actually like a Cushman style long one. It had one that was originally supposed to be around 4 or 5HP but supposedly someones kid blew that motor up, so a guy way back when took a motor off a old military generator that had the same bolt pattern and output shaft, and was thought to be around 8HP. When I got it running well that really moved! With the old pulley setup for a transmission, you could get it up to like 50MPH..and it got there fast! One of my dear departed's favorite picture of me was when I came around the corner of the property hell-bent-for-leather on it at a speed safe for no one, without checking the brakes real well, she snapped it w/a big smile on my face, wearing a old leather helmet and goggles(safety 3rd ;) I found in a box of old auction stuff I bought..she just took a camera out of the box and set it up and was going to find a bird or something to try it out and here I came! She even framed it,lol, and later on I donated it to a museum that begged me for it..lifetime free passes for two, since she's gone I can take someone w/me if you want to see it ;)
Niceguy That's where ours came from. An old air force generator. My dad put it on our farms survive truck air compressor. it worked better than the old engine that came with it originally because, due to the engines torque, he was able to put on a larger pully and turn the compressor faster with less rpm. In this way, if he needed extra air flow for the job he was working on, he still had throttle to kick up the rpm. When he sold the truck, the buyer said he'd only buy it if the air compressor was included. Took my dad the better part of two years to find another one of those engines.
niceguy217 I'm sorry for your loss....I too lost my better half just over a year ago and while looking through my old Army pictures I found one that she had taken of me In an old Army Swamp Buggy......It had 6 wheels, 3 on each side (kinda like the old Banana Splits Buggy). I too was giving it all she could about 40 mph and just as I was entering the water hole which was my target of opportunity, my lovely wife and Angel above, snapped the picture as water sprayed about 30 feet in the air as I hydroplaned across.......it had an old 1950's engine that came off of a small sawmill.....and ran off wood gas!!!! it had a boiler/combustion chamber on the back that sat above the engine, and once full of about 80 lbs of wood 2"x 2'" blocks....that motor would pump and stroke with the sound like a Mississippi Paddle boat steam engine. I really miss that old Swamp Buggy.....When I got out of the Army I heard they phased them out too. .
I love watching your small engine "rescues"! This old B&S sounds good, looks right, and will make a great power plant for one of your special projects! Keep up the good work! (And watch out for those plug wires!)
Mustie1, this was a very enjoyable one. I like the old and unusual engines you get running. I would have been like many other people and given up much earlier, through lack of knowledge, until I had been watching your vast array of videos over the last 12 months. I have now given my old (31 years) Briggs & Stratton ride-on lawnmower a full service and it has never run as well over the last 11 years that I owned it. So, a big thumbs up and thank you from me. Keep up the good work.
Love to see these old engines come back to life. The Reo brought back lots of childhood memories of us using those old lawnmower engines on go-carts and motor bikes. Never did kill one.
You took me back 60 years when my grandfather would work on his farm engines like this one. The engines sounded the same but my grandfather's language was a little harsher and he didn't laugh as much! Thank you! Joe Butler
Mustie I has been most helpful to me getting mentally through COVID-19 🤗 . I always admired those who could repair small engines. And you are the best! Greg from Halifax S
Can I make a suggestion . . . when you want to ground the spark plug to check for spark, just use a short length of decent gauge copper wire with aligator clips on each end, on clip on the plug body, the other clip on the motor for ground. So much easier, I've been doing it this way for years and it takes all the frustration out of it lol. Hope that helps. Hey, I love your approach to diagnosing running faults and hard starting, I've been in the game as a pro auto tech for 40 years and I still pick up some tricks from you! Thanks for your daily dedication to educating and entertaing all your subscribers!!
I'm watching a master at his craft. You film from start to finish regardless of the outcome, and usually something is now running! Keep them coming. I really enjoy your channel! Mike M.
That engine was made the same year I was born. I was cheering for the engine the whole time. We old timers are not ready for disposal! I sure am glad you got it running. Now, I guess I can keep going for a while also!
After seeing you getting your engine to run, I got excited and went to find the book I have for my Ward-Wisconsin Model No. WMC-AEH-22069, 6 H.P. - 2600 R.P.M. engine. My uncle purchased this in in Apr 25, 1947 and hooked it up onto a wagon pulled by a tractor. He planed boards for people who were building homes. I was born April 21, 1945. He gave me this engine in 1993. I have never started it, but after seeing your video, I am excited to get it running.
Wow you sure have the Ability and know how to get these old engines running. I enjoy tour constant chuckle and laugh. What an up beat guy. Love watching you wrench .
Man, that brings back memories! Worked on 1 back in the late '80s. Ign coil had cracks in it & no spark. Filled 'em with silicone, dressed the points, timed, cleaned the carb & tank & it ran. It's got a long stroke & would be great as a splitter motor.
In 1986 I bought my first house in North Hollywood, CA and since it had a lawn I needed a lawn mower. I am not sure how or where I got one, but it was a Sears with a rope start that retracted into the flywheel cover so you didn't have to wind it around the notched pulley. Obviously B&S engine with B&S decal. Well, the rope broke at some point. So I figured I would buy the whole assembly, the tin and the retractor reel. I go look up in the phone book (yes, that's what we used) for Briggs & Stratton and practically fell over when I saw that the freaking B&S regional parts distributor was about 6 blocks away. Wow! I drive over with that part in hand and sure enough there's this mid sized concrete block building with BRIGGS & STRATTON painted on the outside. I go inside and it was beautifully grimy, rows and rows of wooden shelves, great big catalog on the counter, one of those old timey ones on the angled metal stand, catalog was like 2 feet thick. Place looked like the last time it was painted was 1957, that industrial green. Absolutely classic. Ring bell. Out comes a guy probably 60 years old in oily coveralls with a perfectly spherical beer belly. All this time I'm thinking "I'm definitely in the right place and this guy has undoubtedly knows every B&S engine made in the last 35 years so I'm gonna be well taken care of." So, I hand him the part, he looks at it, looks at it, looks at it, finally says "I've never seen anything like this." I was so disappointed!!
I saw one of those not too long ago! rare as hens teeth! They didnt make very many. Something about the spring breaking me thinks. Eather way, it wasnt a popular idea.
@@carllafong7489 That name sounds familiar. (not necessarily related to the lawn mower episode, but this was a mere 30 years ago!) The building was indeed on Saticoy in a cluster of buildings in that kind of industrial area near Raymer, but frankly I couldn't tell you one way or another as to the actual biz name. I never registered the business name. There was the 30 foot long B&S logo painted on the outside of the building and I didn't really give it much thought. I walked in thinking I was in Briggs & Stratton parts heaven a mere 7-8 blocks from my house; but when the guy in the coveralls said he couldn't help me; he wasn't going to be writing a sales invoice with his co name on it... I went from nirvana to stunned disappointment!
Great to see a vid on this so soon as I was really curious about it in the bike show vid. Thanks to the RU-vidr who donated it. Edit: Listening to it thump away and all that torque? My thoughts would be an off road trike "chopper". Great to see Crusty has a 'lil crusty now.
I'd love to sit with you in your shop, shut my mouth and just absorb as much knowledge as I can. You are a wizard at rebuilding carbs and diagnosing spark issues. Thank you so much for posting these videos, as it's sort of like what's described above, but virtually! I've learned an amazing amount just by watching you tinker and get these old, crusty engines running again. Sadly, most of my generation would just throw it away and go buy a new one from China. Also, the treasure trove of parts in your shop reminds me of my father and his two way radio shop. He saves every screw, capacitor, resistor, PA final, switch and connector out of old radios. Whenever something breaks, he always has something to fix it and, half the time, it's something out of another thing that is unrelated to what we're fixing. Anyway, keep doing what you're doing and I'll keep watching. Soon, I'll build myself a shop like yours and continue the adventure!
They don't make em like that anymore. Now is the age of manufactured obsolescence! So they just can sell more stuff. 3/4 of that ends up in non recyclable garbage piles. I suspect that when future civilizations (if they would exist) looks us at, they will mark us as the Garbage civilization, cause that will be the only mark on earth we would have left behind.
@@AntonyJohn71 They will ask why we burried all this low grade metal ore, Future generations will be mining garbage piles for plastic, metal and such resources. Just need to make sure toxins dont leach into the soil and water,
@@AntonyJohn71 The "they don't make them like that anymore" concept is a complete fallacy. This is a sample size of one. I'm sure these engines had lots of duds returned to the factory, lots of problems at the time. We just don't hear about it anymore because the mechanics are all dead. Also, modern engines actually ARE well engineered. Just like all engines, you need to maintain them, and most people are stupid and don't even get oil changes. Plastics and electronics are just as recyclable as metal. The reason we USE plastic is because it can be just as tough as steel, while infinitely recyclable with less energy and materials required.
From downunder , in Oz, big thank you for your videos , unlike others , you get straight into the action and keep it moving and interesting. You are konda like the "Go To" guy to help us other mere mortals percevere with a large dab of optimism and only give up when all is lost. It is amazing how many and varied types of equipment are able to be brought back to life!!!! Nothing religious ,ha., just good old fashioned " don't let it beat ya , my dad did a lot of that , over the years. Your efforts are tuly appreciated, keep it up .
Amazing in 1943 we had the technology to manufacture a high voltage coil with insulation and windings that lasted over 75 years. Also love the sediment bowl. Best water / dirt separator ever engineered.
You're phenomenal. Literally bring dead things back to life. You're an inspiration Mustie. I guess it's not my luck to repair these things. I haven't repaired one ever since watching your videos. I wanted to repair my younger brother's pocket bike that a previous 'mechanic' tore apart and never returned the wires and all back to place. And unfortunately, there's no manual for it too. :( It's a 49CC pocket bike with a broken pull string. So I tried the drill way to make it start, there's no spark and the ignition coil has a red wire that I don't know where to attach.
Long time watcher first time comment. I appreciate your videos and keep up the great work. I rebuilt my first carb last weekend and your vids made the job so easy. It's like, I knew what I was doing before I started. Thanks
Yep... you've done it again. Fantastic video. Great sounding engine, needs a vintage looking bike frame or how about building one from scratch. Left us wanting more with the Crusty trailer. Watch the next episode (Que the SOAP music) PS. The extra subtitles are really worthwhile, your commentary is excellent but we all think of extra things we thought we should should have said. Keep up the good work. LOL from UK.
I love it when I see old engines come back to life. I've brought back a few myself and the last one I did was on my snowblower that was given to me because it wouldn't run
Your laugh is infectious and your methodical curiosity is magnetic...I want to see what happens next! That is secret to great filmmaking. I am down with a virus but these keep me completely occupied and that is a real treat.
When I was a kid me and a friend put a similar Briggs off a corn auger on a big go kart we built that had a an old school bus seat so we could both ride. So much torque it was hard to keep it in chain drives!
This one takes me back. In the early 70's my dad drug one of these home mounted on a walk behind 6 ft wide bush hog. He named it after mother. "Big Mamma!" Just love your tinkering!
Darren, that zz engine has powered a lot of things during the war and it is awesome to see it live once more, one thing you mentioned was due to the altitude you could adjust one of the set screws which is quite true.. They ran IIRC as "putt putt's" or APU's (aircraft power units) all the way down to running a mobile kitchen dishwasher (watch the "Flying Leathernecks" with John Wayne) and you may very well see that same engine being used to pump fuel into the aircraft that they were flying F4U Corsair's IIRC. It's good to see it running once more, great save on that engine because it has been a work horse throughout it's life
Just found your channel and I like your style and attitude. Not afraid to take on the old engines and do your best to figure them out and keep them running. Interesting, entertaining, and inspiring. Keep the videos coming. Thanks
Kit's from back in the day came with a cardboard gauge to set floats, though most people set them by eye. It should set level across when upside down and viewing it from the side looking through the workings. They built things back then to last, not like nowadays. Love the sound those old engines could make. My Mother could overhaul those old engines. She was the first Women to graduate small engine mechanics in Tulsa Vo Tech college back in 1956. My Dad was a Master Mechanic so it runs in the family i guess. She had her picture in the Paper pregnant with me When she Graduated lol.
I put one of these old motor on an old go cart i made back in 1963 , it ran 37 miles an hour scared the hell out of me ,and it want to go faster. Brought back ole memories, That was 60 Yrs ago Thanks , Texas
I have seen this engine: It was on Army surplus a 3kw genset. It had a 3kw Leland alternator. It led a long life after the war, until it quit. I got it from a junk pile. Being mil spec it has cast shrouds. My engine had the lobe on the crank worn so badly that the points would not open sufficiently. Being 45 years ago, there were no electronic ignitions available for this engine.
I love the sound of that engine. It's very different than the sound of my Wisconsin AGND. I don't think the newer B&S engines will be up and running in 75 years. That engine is two years younger than I am. Jeez I feel old.
I have one of these that ran last time I tried it. I've been storing it as an antique. The head is unusual in two ways. The fins are enclosed for a smooth top as part of the head casting. It has a separate chamber for the spark plug. I see you discovered the chamber. A port a little of 1/8th of an inch reaches the combustion chamber. Nice engine and with the large flywheel will run very slow. The button is a kill for the ignition. The unit has an internal flyweight governor so throttle is a spring arrangement to set the governor speed. Looks like the spark plug wire was replaced. The original is a cloth covered affair. The ignition is under the flywheel with points under another cover to keep out dust and runs on a cam on the shaft under the flywheel. Clean the points, replace or test the condenser, and hope the coil is still good. In old engines the head design for the smooth top and pre ignition chamber is unique. They run very well and remember the large diameter and heavy flywheel makes this a low RPM motor. Run it between 800 and 3000 RPM.
Been following Mustie1 for some years now, and never fails to bring a smile to my face, and you really feel as if you are stood with him will he does some “ wrenching “. Hey Darren, you beat me to it, as soon as I saw the trailer, I thought of Crusty, made for each other 👍🙂
Had a cast Iron Briggs horizontal shaft from the early 1950's my dad bought from a small engine shop. It looked alot like yours. It had an original gear reduction unit built on it. We put it on a "trike" we made from a 20" bicycle. Had 16" wheelbarrow wheels we put on the back. Later we put in in the rear trunk of an imported kids pedal car! This car was a scale of an Austin. It had working headlights. paded seats, and the front hood opened to reveal a faux stamp metal engine. Had pneumatic Dunlop tires and hub caps! This car made the Murray pedal cars of the time look like cheap junk. Mine was red. This video brought back some good memories,,, Thanks!
