Don’t Cut Off Your Armature Despite Your Flux Capacitor

It’s official: I have no mechanical skill whatsoever. This is no big secret. I’ve never really understood how people know how to fix cars, engines and the like. In fact, I’d be better at tying my shoes while wearing boxing gloves.

I am good at simple tasks. Changing light bulbs? Piece of cake! Filling my gas tank? No sweat! Plugging in new household appliances? Probably easy if it’s a normal shaped plug. I’m also good at math, which is how I know that when something does go wrong, I’m going to bounce a check. (Apologies in advance to the first lawnmower repairman who agrees to come to my house.)

It began two days ago – my problem with Bessy, my beloved, ride-on lawnmower. After two weeks of neglect, I finally decided to cut my grass and force my ticks to find a new home. That’s when I discovered that Bessy, who I have taken for a ride exactly three times thus far, has decided to take the rest of the summer off.

When I purchased the mower in question, I knew she needed a new battery. Hence, it has become my custom to use actual jumper cables connected to my actual car battery to fire up ole Bessy. It worked fine – until this week. Upon arriving home from work, I lovingly walked the mower from the garage to the car. Then I gently connected the cables, sat down, and turned the key: nothing. My girl didn’t respond. Her engine screamed, “whawhawhawhawha,” over and over, in vain. She wasn’t moving. I tried again. Turned the key, heard her tease: “whawhawhawha,” but she just wouldn’t turn over. This routine continued for approximately 30 minutes. I’m from the school of thought that says: as long as something has a key, it will start working sooner or later.

Recognizing that my logic was probably not sound, I reluctantly opened her hood and looked for something marked ‘press here if engine will not start.’ This mower didn’t come with that feature. (Note to self: it always pays to buy the more expensive model.) I tinkered with a few things under the hood. Her gas tank was more than half full; her oil looked okay, I guess – for as much as I know about oil; and I think I found her air filter. Feeling like staring at the engine might have done some good, I sat back down and tried to start her again. Inexplicably, my technique did not have the desired effect.

Having had enough, I finally called Paul, a gifted mechanic who is also my brother-in-law. I figured I could have him talk me through what to do. Just like trying to talk a six-year-old through building a Stradivarius. The first question from him was “Does she have gas?” (Note: Paul knows me well). I did double-check, but I confirmed that the Middle East was slightly richer thanks to my laziness and frugality in hiring a landscaping company. The next question was, “Is her battery connected?” Now I have to admit, I may be a mechanical disaster, but these are softball questions.

Jumping directly from questions from Mechanics for Morons to those found in Master Technician Journal, Paul asked me to locate the spark plug. The spark plug? No problem. Just search for something that looks like it could plug a spark, I reasoned. I embarked on a fruitless journey through every engine part, even after receiving a very good tip on how to find it. Paul had pointed out that a thick black wire would connect the spark plug to the Flux Capacitor, in order to create the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity necessary to drive Bessy the amazing three-miles-per-hour I relied on for her to move me across my field of dreams. After looking for a while, I located one thick black wire that really seemed more like a tube to me, so I claimed there were no thick black wires and suggested maybe a red one might have been used in its place. For a guy who really never gets agitated, I sensed that Paul was on the verge of calling me a complete putz.

Living up to his reputation, Paul calmly held back any anger he might have felt towards me at the moment. Instead he patiently explained to me that an engine needs three things to start. If I remember correctly, he said they are: a key, fluids and noise. I seemingly had all the pieces in place. He finally grew frustrated enough to take a drive over to my house and look at it himself – my mission was officially achieved. I was off the hook.

As Paul began disassembling the engine, which appeared to have way more parts than necessary, I stood by and watched in much the same way I used to watch my dad replace wiring in the house when I was a kid. I learned quickly that my role as “the helper” was to stand around and try to look busy helping, or at least appear interested in doing so. I was neither, then or now.

Like a skilled surgeon performing a complicated procedure, Paul made single-word demands for tools. I was right on top of the easy ones, like wrench and screwdriver. It was when he asked for the “12-volt tester” that I began to panic. My best approach to find this mysterious tool was not to simply ask him what it looked like. No, it was instead to systematically rule out anything that I knew WASN’T a 12-volt tester and make a guess based on what was left.

So I began to rifle through the toolbox, a man on a mission. Roughly 90 seconds later, Paul sauntered over, gently pushing my amateur ass aside. In one fell swoop, he fished out the little light with the two wires attached to it (the 12-volt tester, I concluded), giving me one of those “How do you remember to breathe?” sideways glances.

After pulling apart every piece of the lawnmower, Paul decided that the problem was the armature – or the opening in the lawnmower that lets in the light. He also described it as a magneto, which I honestly thought was exclusively the brainchild of a writer for Marvel Comics. None of this seemed to make any sense to me. How any of this has anything to do with why the lawnmower wouldn’t start is beyond me. Luckily for Bessy, Paul was right on top of her, so to speak. He seemed to know exactly how to make her purr for him.

Throughout the process of “helping” Paul, I did manage to get myself filthy and covered in motor oil. Let this be a lesson to you: make sure the cap is on the oil tank BEFORE you turn the ignition key. To an uninformed passerby, I certainly gave the appearance of having worked really hard on this mystery machine. I may not have been able to get her motor running, but it sure looked like I gave it everything I had.

As an aside, I hate going to a parts counter where I’m expected to know every spec of every item I’m looking for, or risk looking like a complete idiot. Today I went down the complete idiot road. Figuring I could get what I needed with the model number of the lawnmower, I found quickly that I was entirely unprepared. And Joe-Bob with the four teeth in his mouth was snickering at my total ignorance. Regardless, we figured it out.

So now all I need to do is switch out the old part with the new one I purchased today. Then I’ll be back in the saddle, ready to transform my property into the lush greenscape I intended for it to be, and proud of a job well done. Which of course is all dependent upon whether or not Paul minds fetching his own tools.