Why is it not possible to change a lawn mower engine to a horizontal shaft? everyone owns old lawnmowers, and would find 1000's of uses for them. I don't know enough about small engines to figure it out. But can't a person just change carberator positions etc.?

Jay

-- Jay P (a0000001@telus.net), May 12, 2004

Answers

It is possible, but not worth the work. It would require putting a dipper (oil slinger) on the bottom of the connecting rod, rigging the carb up so that it would still sit upright, and makeing a mount to mount it in the vertical position. For someone who dosen't know what they are doing, this would be hard. But for the experienced engine builder, it would be easy.

-- Jamie Miles - www.yardkarts.com (myron@yardkarts.com), May 12, 2004.

he iz a liar, i can do it for yu, juzt send me yur engine and i will judo slap it and it will become horizontal

-- noodles in my box (my ass iz happy@gotrice.net), May 17, 2004.

yeah im looking for the answer to the same question, ive got a 5hp briggs and straton engine but it has a vertical shaft, ive heard there is something that can convert it over to it with wase but i cant remember the name to this part. You could just use a gear box but that could get costly

-- Kevin (kevin_van@hotmail.com), May 17, 2004.

FAGS

-- Hugh G Rection (FUCK YOU@ASS.com), May 29, 2004.

Its not practical because the engine was entirely designed to lie on its side. The oil would pool up too high and probably accumulate in the valespring area and/or find its way out of the engine through areas not meant to be submerged in oil, like the flywheel side crank bearing. Not only that, mounting it would be 10x harder since all the baseplate holes would be on the side. Lawnmower engines seem to work best on lawnmowers.

-- Jim (dirtrider218@hotmail.com), June 25, 2004.

I tried this when I was a kid, but it didn't work very well. Mounting it was a problem and it didn't have a dipper. The other problem is that the lawnmower uses the mass of the blade as part of the flyweel. The flywheel on these mower engines is very light because of this and I found it difficult to keep it running without the blade attached.

-- cal (abu_garump@yahoo.com), June 29, 2004.

use a lawnmower transaxle. If you are using the lawnmower frame Just switch the pulleys so the big on engine, small on tranny. Or use sprokets and chains. They also sell what looks to be a gearbox which will change the position.

-- Mike (idonthaveanemail@aol.com), July 01, 2004.

i have tried this before and it is not worth the effort as someone has said the oil finds its way into bad places very easily. u are better off to get a dead horizontal shaft engine from your mower shop and strip it bare and find a new carbie & ignition for it and it will usually run again unless it is totally ceized up. good luck

-- ya (nood@smallpond.com), July 02, 2004.

Simplicity is the key to using the vert shaft engine in a horizontal shaft application.

I've seen gokarts and tillers w/ vert shaft engines which use a belt and pulley system.

The vert shaft engine has a pulley on the bottom of it and the driven pulley is configred in a horizontal shaft pattern. Then a V-belt connects the drive and driven pulley accordingly.

The belt itself is the means in which the direction of the power is converted.

This way the may use either a vertical or a horizontal shaft via a flexible V-belt configuration.

Make sense?

Hope so.

Good luck.

Sincerely,

Todd L. scootrix@hotmail.com http://bpli.com/tscooter/ - 1st attempt at engine powered pneumatic tired scooter...

-- Todd L. (scootrix@hotmail.com), October 29, 2004.