Ever wondered how to winterize your lawn mower or clean the air filter on your ATV? Did you purchase used motorcycle and need an owner’s manual? EBSCO’s Small Engine Repair Reference Center (SERRC) is the place to visit for answers to these questions and many more. SERRC contains the full set of small engine repair manuals from Clymer (http://www.clymer.com/). These manuals contain thousands of accurate and concise step-by-step maintenance and repair instructions for hundreds of small engine machines and their supporting components.
The SERRC homepage provides direct links to eight categories:
· ATV
· Generators & Other Small Engines
· Marine/Boat Motors
· Motorcycles
· Outdoor Power Equipment- (Chain Saws, Lawn Mowers, Rotary Tillers, Snowthrowers, String Trimmers and Blowers)
· Personal Water Craft
· Snowmobiles
· Tractors
Watch these two videos for a quick overview of SERRC including browse, advanced search, view results, save and print features.
EBSCO: http://youtu.be/X2MB3omFDmc (3 minutes)
Summerlovinlibrary: http://youtu.be/857pjJA2420 (4 Minutes)
Discovery Exercise –
As a group we’ll create a list of DIY projects that could be completed based information found in SERRC. Using the browse and search techniques described in the video links, take a few minutes to explore the SERRC website. Next, based on your findings, add a comment to this blog post with your suggested project. Also if you’ve had a previous experience with SERRC and have some tips to share, include those in your comment.
DIY Projects:Winter Motorcycle Maintenance (get your bike to ready for the winter)
Two-Cycle Small Engine Start Up Tips
Snow Blower Oil Change Tips
Cleaning the Carburetor on Small Engines
· ATV
· Generators & Other Small Engines
· Marine/Boat Motors
· Motorcycles
· Outdoor Power Equipment- (Chain Saws, Lawn Mowers, Rotary Tillers, Snowthrowers, String Trimmers and Blowers)
· Personal Water Craft
· Snowmobiles
· Tractors
Watch these two videos for a quick overview of SERRC including browse, advanced search, view results, save and print features.
EBSCO: http://youtu.be/X2MB3omFDmc (3 minutes)
Summerlovinlibrary: http://youtu.be/857pjJA2420 (4 Minutes)
Discovery Exercise –
As a group we’ll create a list of DIY projects that could be completed based information found in SERRC. Using the browse and search techniques described in the video links, take a few minutes to explore the SERRC website. Next, based on your findings, add a comment to this blog post with your suggested project. Also if you’ve had a previous experience with SERRC and have some tips to share, include those in your comment.
DIY Projects:Winter Motorcycle Maintenance (get your bike to ready for the winter)
Two-Cycle Small Engine Start Up Tips
Snow Blower Oil Change Tips
Cleaning the Carburetor on Small Engines
Hello Folks,
ReplyDeleteI spent quite a bit of time browsing and searching for a project to do. We have a broken lawnmower I thought I could find information on to fix. Unfortunately, the Craftsman information was rather limited, especially for my lack of experience with small engine repair.
I can see how the documents available would be helpful to someone who was familiar with small engines, but what I needed was some trouble shooting information.
We also have a Husqvarna chainsaw, and I thought I could find information on how to replace the chain, but I didn't find any luck there either. I did wonder if our high school shop class ever uses these databases…I’ll have to ask.
I'm not trying to sound whiny, but it took the documents a long time to load and it was disappointing that the information wasn’t very useful to me once they did. They were only a few pages long, so I wasn’t sure why it took so long. I tried this several times during the day (and night) when the internet traffic is slower, but that didn’t seem to make much difference.
I look forward to hearing someone else’s success story with this lesson!
Kind Regards,
Valarie
I chose the snowblower oil change project. I punched in Outdoor Power Equipment then chose John Deere 320.
ReplyDeleteIt's a two-cycle engine so you don't change the oil. You just mix the oil with the gas. The general ratio is 50 to 1.
The only reason I was able to write the above is because my brother works on engines and that is what he told me. When I looked up how to change the oil on the SERRC site, it didn't tell me any of this. Just that it was a 2 cycle engine and you mixed the oil with the gas. Which if I had just taken that at face value I would have assumed you put the oil in the gas tank. (LOL! My brother just told me that that is correct.) Okay, so I'm a girl. How am I supposed to know that?
I just looked up another type of snowblower to see if the lubrication is done differently. And it talks about shift rods and drive clutches. For heavens sake just give me a shovel! Why does mankind have to make everything so difficult?
Okay. I looked up some all terrain vehicle (I do not know what that is) engine and I looked up the lubrication section and it was much more detailed and had pictures but it was still too complicated for me to understand. I think I'll just take whatever breaks down to the shop and have someone else fix or maintain it for me.
This was one the first lesson that didn't really benefit me of any sort, mainly because I don't own ANY of the equipment that this site offers manuals for (I live in a small apartment with my husband and borrow any power tools from our parents. We also don't own any small motor vehicles). I can see this being useful for someone who does have an ATV or snow blower for example, however I am not that person yet. Though the for sake of trying out this site, I looked up the "1985 Honda ATV" manual at random and got back five different repair manuals. I clicked on the first manual which I could purchase, which broke down a list of chapters covering everything from troubleshooting to clutch repair, tune-up, general maintenance, and the like. The online manuals are nice when they load (which does take a bit, as pointed out by Valarie) with detailed photos, easy to follow instructions, and step by step break down of what to do (including the tools needed). I am definitely impressed at the variety and amount of manuals I can buy, and see this being a very useful place when I intend to do a diy fix of my mechanical problem.
ReplyDeleteGood luck to the others that post next! ;)
Barbie
I have to agree with Valerie's experience - I spent quite a bit of time looking around and couldn't find info or found it limited. I think to benefit from this resource you definitely should have good basic knowledge of small engines.
ReplyDeleteI also agreed with Valerie about the download time and how disappointing the information could sometimes be.
I also found the advanced search not particularly accurate. I jotted down a couple of terms that I found within the toubleshooting text and then tried to go back in and do an advanced search using words within the full text and came up with "no results found"...grr.
Sorry, I could not provide a more successful experience...
Until next time,
Margaret
I am sorry to say, that I too struck out on this search. My husband owns a diesel repair shop, so I looked up both large diesel engines (John Deere) and Evinrude kickers (outboards) when I selected a model to search, a blank page was returned each time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if it were possible, I would think servicing a chainsaw or an kicker would be good for the everyday rural Alaskan...perhaps it's that Adobe flash 32 bit problem...anyhow, cool resource.
http://fairbanksbookworm.blogspot.com/2012/05/7b-small-engine-repair-reference-center.html
ReplyDeleteCan't get too excited about this because I am not mechanically inclined. But for those that are, and especially those who would rather spend hours trying to fix something rather than take it to a repair shop, this database has some merit.
I embarked on this exercise with intrepidation, as we live in a townhome with yard maintenance done, drive a small car we get serviced regularly, and have no room to store toys or even much equipment of any kind. Then I remembered in the 1970s when we were new immigrants and students, our first vehicle was a 90cc Honda motorcycle, that my husband did his best to keep in good running condition. It only went 40 kms per hour with the two of us riding, and we were once accompanied through the Dease Island tunnel near Vancouver, BC by a traffic officer who considered us a hazard, and wanted to get us safely off the freeway on his watch. Nevertheless, it was heaven to own motorized transport, after managing on bicyles until one of them was stolen!
ReplyDeleteI decided to look up information on doing an oil change on a Honda 100 or 125cc, the least powerful on their books these days. There was a 6 page document that actually looked very practical, with clear illustrations, and instructions. I do think I could have managed this on my own, if we still owned such a machine.
Posted by Sadie Hawkins.
I embarked on this exercise with intrepidation, as we live in a townhome with yard maintenance done, drive a small car we have serviced regularly, and have no room to store toys or even much equipment of any kind. Then I remembered in the 1970s when we were new immigrants and students, our first vehicle was a 90cc Honda motorcycle, that my husband did his best to keep in good running condition. It only went 40 kms per hour with the two of us riding, and we were once accompanied through the Dease Island tunnel by a traffic officer who considered us a hazard, and wanted to get us safely off the freeway on his watch. Nevertheless, it was heaven to own motorized transport, after managing on bicyles until one of them was stolen!
ReplyDeleteI decided to look up information on doing an oil change on a Honda 100 or 125cc, the least powerful model listed in the resource. There was a 6-page document that actually looked very practical, with clear illustrations, and instructions. I do think I could have managed this on my own, if we still owned such a machine.
I embarked on this exercise with intrepidation, as we live in a townhome with yard maintenance done, drive a small car we have serviced regularly, and have no room to store toys or even much equipment of any kind. Then I remembered in the 1970s when we were new immigrants and students, our first vehicle was a 90cc Honda motorcycle, that my husband did his best to keep in good running condition. It only went 40 kms per hour with the two of us riding, and we were once accompanied through the Dease Island tunnel by a traffic officer who considered us a hazard, and wanted to get us safely off the freeway on his watch. Nevertheless, it was heaven to own motorized transport, after managing on bicyles until one of them was stolen!
ReplyDeleteI decided to look up information on doing an oil change on a Honda 100 or 125cc, the least powerful model listed in the resource. There was a 6-page document that actually looked very practical, with clear illustrations, and instructions. I do think I could have managed this on my own, if we still owned such a machine.
Posted by Sadie Hawkins (on WordPress)