Basic Engine Driven Equipment Repair/Maintenance Thread - Learn how to repair the things that keep lights on and food on the table

[ConspicuousArdiunoDue]

Self sufficient homesteaders nowadays use tons of equipment to make their lives easier and offload work to devices and become more efficient. You might think straight to cars and trucks, but there are many small gas and diesel engines that we take advantage of everyday to make life easier. These include:

• Gas/Diesel Generators
• Gas/Diesel Tractors
• Gas/Diesel Pony Motors
• Gas Lawn Mowers

and if you wanted to go further back in history:

• Hit And Miss Engines
• Field Engines
• Etc

The point of this thread is to discuss small to large equipment maintenance that an enterprising homesteader may have to perform. Not just engines, suspension and bodywork are also important so discussions of welding/part creation with a simple shop should also be discussed. In this vein, shop and maintenance manuals should be collected here for the possible consumption of users, some examples include:

• Haynes Shop Manuals
• Welding and shop tool Manuals
• System Manuals (such as manuals on Fuel Injection, etc)
• General Shop Manuals for Gas/Diesel Engines

Discussion on which vehicles are easy to maintain and personal experience with maintaining equipment should also be done. Feel free to share knowledge with your fellow kiwis that could help them not have to call Mr Lopez out to fix their broken generator. Also share tool recommendations, a lot of people probably don't even have a torque wrench so sharing information like that could help new people learn what is required to tear into an engine.

To start off the thread with some recs, I'll give some of my recommendations:
For on the road vehicles, I don't recommend a brand but qualities that lead to ease of maintenance:

• Uses early EFI or late carburation - Early EFI is mechanical or computer driven, but doesn't throw limp codes. Carbs are the easiest to maintain fuel system.
• Single Camshaft in block, Pushrod - I'd prefer hydraulic pushrods, but flat tappit cams are OK too. It is very simple to get these valves into tolerance and maintain them. \
  • 
• Real leaf suspension - Much easier to work on than having another coil system. Plus, leaf suspensions can work just fine while busted to shit.
• Front suspension is a bitch pretty much no matter what, but I have a preference for Twin I beam because of Ford.
• Mechanical Ignition System - Just a lot easier IMO than non-mechanical due to being a gear timed with the engine instead of relying on a computer in the Ignition System.
• Try for inline fuel filters - Car company nigs decided that putting the fuel filter in the gas tank for high pressure lines in the 90's was the way to go; it's retarded. I shouldn't have to take a gas tank out to fix a fucking filter.

For Tractors, I would recommend a Ford series tractor, either an 8n or 9n. These were made to be dead simple to work on, have a PTO, and can be equipped to do most tasks that your land requires. You can even make it into a front and back loader. You can buy one for 900 bucks running, even cheaper if not. Very easy to fix, and there's millions of them everywhere.


For Tools, I could list off tool truck brands but I think most people would want to try to keep their exposure to tool costs low. I would recommend good ol Hobo Freight. Tools there are cheap and plentiful, you can get power tools, shop tools, shop accessories, everything basically right there for fairly cheap. If money is no object, look into Snap-On brands and MatCo, those are the tools of choice of most American Mechanics.