Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

DUH!

Yesterday it was cold and dreary. The wind was blowing at about twenty-five miles per hour and there was a chill in the air. Better start working on the wood, I thought to myself. So I dressed warm and went outside ready to get to work.

I had loaned my splitter to my friend Mark over the weekend and he had worked it steady for six hours. His shed was full and ready for winter. Since he has hunting property he has plenty of “Friends” and they turned out in droves to help out. We have built a wood processor using my fandango splitter and an old farm conveyor.

He had one team bringing up the logs to the incline ramp, another cutting it into blocks, three doing the splitting, two on the dump trucks and three more over at his shed stacking as the trucks unloaded. No wonder he was able to accomplish all that work.

Anyway he brought the splitter back and yesterday morning I went out to do some splitting of my own. My splitter is a big unit with a hydraulic lift platform for lifting the heavy blocks and a big ram. It has a wedge that gives it a six, four and two-piece capability. Already I had a big pile of blocks staged and ready to go. Hmmm I thought, should be able to knock out a couple of trailer loads this morning.

In the ten years I have had my splitter it has never failed to start on the first or second pull of the chord. Yesterday morning was the exception. I pulled six times and not even a hick-up. I checked the gas and saw it was full. Mark had not cleaned it up but then he had been in a hurry to get it back because I said I needed it. Immediately I went into the blame mode thinking to myself. Why is it that whenever I loan something out it comes back broke? Then I chided myself thinking Mark does a better job maintaining my equipment than I do and after ten years it was about time I had some trouble with the Honda motor. Anyway I pulled the plug and grounded it to see if I was getting a spark. There was no spark. I called Mark and asked if the splitter had been giving him problems and he told me it had run perfectly the day before. However, he was quick to say he would be right over. I tried a new spark plug and that one didn’t spark either. "Hmmm," I said stroking my chin as he drove up in his four-wheeler.

For the next quarter hour we puzzled why there was no spark. Finally Mark unscrewed the oil dipstick and noted there was no oil showing.

“Must have run it out yesterday… should have checked before I brought it back.”

“Is there a low oil sensor that acts as a circuit breaker?” I asked realizing suddenly what the problem was.”

“Sure is,” he answered.

I went and got a quart of motor oil and poured some into the sump hole. When it showed full, Mark pulled on the recoil starter again and the motor burst to life.

“I’ll be damned,” I uttered in amazement. “Had this machine forever and never realized it had a low oil cutoff.”

“Keeps the engine from burning up if the stupid operators let it run low,” he answered grinning... "any good riding lawnmower has one."

We both felt dumb as a box of rocks. Mark for letting it get that way and me for not being able to diagnose the problem. DUH!