Kevin Gillis: Hi! I am Kevin Gillis with TTI and today we are talking about winterizing portable gas-powered tools. This unit right here a garden equipment is a Lawn Mower. The first thing we need to do is decide whether we want to take all the gas out of the unit which means we have to run the unit and just let it die out or if we want to add stabilizer to the gas. I recommend an stabilizer. So basically all you are going to do you are just going to unscrew your gas cap here and for a gas tank of this side, usually adding an ounce to two and a half gallons so that is what I am going to do. Let's loosen it up there. Pop it open. So what you have to do with this type of stabilizer? You will just squeeze it and you will see that it fills up the chamber and I am actually looking at the front here. So once I get to an ounce, I am going to pour that in there. Okay, now once that's stabilizer is in there, what we want to do? We want to actually run the unit for at least 15 minutes to get that stabilizer into the carburetor and get it cleaned for the season. And make sure that it hits all the area that it needs to. So the next thing we are going to do is we want to take our Lawn Mower outside and just flip it over and get all that debris, all those grass clippings out there. We can just grab the hose and just hose it down, make sure that is all clean for the next season.

Next you are going to want to take off your blade. And you are going to need for that is your socket and a glove because you are going to want to get a steady firm grip on the blade itself and the blade can be sharp. So you grab your socket, just loosen up that bolt, use hand to loosen it and then pull it right off. You are always going to want to refer to your owner's manual because that will let you know the size of the socket and what you should be using to take your blade off. Okay.

Once you get the blade off, we are going to examine it to see how sharp it is. Now this one actually is pretty sharp but if it would be dull, there is two things you can do; you can sharpen it yourself with an angle grinder. Now you have remember that these are balanced correctly by the factory so you are going to want to balance this blade. So you can go out and get a machine and pay a lot of money or you can do an easy trick, just take a nail, put it on the wall, hang it on there and watch your balance. Okay, if you don't feel comfortable doing that then you can do to your home improvement warehouse and pick up a new blade which is what I would recommend.

What we are going to do now? We are going to take a look at the lawn mower and see if I can identify any rust parts. If there is any rust, we want to get remove it because we don't want that sitting over the winter months. So as I am looking around here I could actually see I get some rust down here. So what I am going to do? I am actually going to pick up my wire brush and, what I can do is I can scrub down all of it. We have also got some here on this, anything that has exposed that, what you are going to see that it is going to rust out. So that is really what you are looking for and I see some right here so I can just scrub that down there and get that cleaned up. And I think that's it. So from here we are going to want to go into checking the air filter.

Now the air filter is actually depending on the Lawn Mower. This one is located right here. Some of them have knobs, we have to loosen or either maybe tilt it too, definitely you want to refer to your owner's manual again. But this one right here is just a pop up so what I have to do is just pop it off just like that and I can take a look at it. Now this is again one of those foam filters so I am able to wash this in warm water and soap and then put it back in here. Now this one is looking a little dirty so that is something that I do want to, that I would want to do soon in order to keep it clean. But if you have a paper filter and it is dirty, you can probably bang it out but if it is too dirty, you just want to toss it and get a new one. You want to do that again before next season because you don't want any dust or debris to enter in there. So we will put that back on. Now what we are going to do? We are going to check out the spark plug as well as check the oil. So let's do that. First thing I have to do is grab my socket here to change it. Okay, and this is where my spark plug is located but depending on your user manual it may be located at different location. So when you want to get the right size of socket, we are just going to roll that in there and I just give it up, there I go. I will loosen it up here and here we go, alright? Down here it is dirty but it works. Okay, if didn't, obviously it will look spoiled and there is something wrong with it, we would want to replace it now, we won't want to leave it again for dust and debris collecting in this area over here. So now I seen that it looks okay, I am just going to put it back in there. That is our spark plug. Now let's check our oil. Now depending on your unit, it depends on you how will you check the oil? Some units you have to actually screw it all the way in, unscrew and pop it out; other units, you just leave it unscrewed and pop it out. With this unit right here, all you have to do is leave it unscrewed, we are going to pull it out, we are going to wipe down our dip stick here and we are going to pop it back there and we are going to look at the line. Yeah! definitely this is going to need some oil so what I am going to do? I am going to grab my funnel right here, and I have that in there. I am going to grab my engine oil here, I am just going to pour some of it in. Here we go, it is just to lubricate it, put this back on. Okay, tighten that down and you are done. You have fully winterized your Lawn Mower.

Next we are going to be winterizing our Pressure Washer.