Spiral Jaw Clutch

davidh

davidh

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i am looking for where a spiral jaw clutch or one way clutch may be used, and adapted to a gadget to connect a battery drill to rotate and start a small gas engine i.e. lawn mower. i see a bunch of options in mcmasters catalog but they must be available in surplus places from other uses. i am unable to pull a starter rope and would really like to make a cheap and easy gadget that would work. . . anyone have ideas ?
 
Go buy you a electric start push mower. Yeah I know, no funds in the household budget to cover it.

Depending on the model of lawn mower, you may be able to purchase a add on kit to make it electric start. Just a WAG.

Sears used to sell a weed eater that had a drill attachment you could buy that allowed you to start it using your cordless drill.
Never work worth a flip. Would have worked better if it had a one way clutch built into it as you are wanting to do.
You might want to look at the Bendix gear arrangement that is used on the smaller electric start B & S engines. Got to be a way to adapt that to a cordless drill.
 
Similarly my suggestion is not a direct response to your actual question, but might help: Get an electric lawn mower. I have a 13 amp Greenworks model. I got it for $150. It bags, mulches, or side-discharges, just like most gas mowers. Plenty of power for normal lawn maintenance. And it's SO lightweight (honestly, my 8 year-old daughter could handle it if I trusted her with a spinning blade) that the lack of self-propelled drive hasn't bothered me for one minute in the two years I've owned it.

It couldn't be simpler. It has a DC motor directly driving the blade (with permanently sealed bearings), there's a bridge rectifier to convert the AC power to DC, and the safety switch and power cord. There are no other parts to go bad or replace (I suppose a wheel might break down eventually??). The only maintenance I've done is sharpening the blade a couple times per year and a few weeks ago my wife tried to mow grass taller than the mower with it and the bridge rectifier burned up. I bought 4 new ones for $12 (including shipping from Florida), and it only took a few minutes and seven torx screws to install the new one (once I had it). I can't even get the air filter for my (recently inherited, riding) gas mower that cheap.

Honestly, I couldn't be happier with this thing. I thought that having an extension cord would greatly complicate mowing, but where this nice electric was as cheap as the cheapest gas mowers and all of their issues, I decided to try it. It turns out if you've ever managed a power cord while vacuuming then you know how to manage a cord while mowing. Just start on the side of the yard where it's plugged in and then work away from there.

  • No Winterizing
  • No Spring tune-up
  • No gas
  • No oil
  • No oil changes
  • No air filter
  • No spark plug
  • No rip cord
  • No choke
  • No throttle

It's quieter than a gas mower (the blade still makes a fair amount of noise, obviously). The handle collapses and it takes up very little space, with no concern about storing it vertically, either. I can see the appeal of the battery-powered units, but honestly I have no wear-and-tear on expensive batteries (nor did I have to purchase them up front), nor delays while waiting for them to charge. Just an extension cord. And at 13 amps a 14 gauge cord is sufficient for most yards.

I really didn't expect to be this pleased with an electric mower. I would recommend it to anyone.
 
Look at any old crank started engine IE: Model -T . you will see a very simple self ejecting adapter if one has access to some tools. simple T for the drill and a spiralled groove for engine to start, a drill bit,hacksaw,and file for real basics.
 
Don't know about the newer stuff, but the older B&S engines had the clutch assembly right underneath the recoil starter spool. The end of the clutch had a weird shaped driver, kinda round and square. When we used to race go karts, we removed the recoil starter and used a 12 point socket (that kinda fit ). Back in them days, there were no cordless drills available that had enough power to crank a motor over, so we used a Ford starter that was affixed to the socket.
 
i gotta add, i mow about 8 acres here at the farm, hills and valleys, under and between hedges and brush and stuff too. i have a john deere zero turn that does a great job until i try to get under the trees and between the hedges that we planted a few years ago, right on the top of the hill going to the ditch along side the highway. i picked up this john deer rear engine rider thats the right size i think, to get where the other one will not fit. thats the reason. my health will not cooperate with a walk behind, nor a pull start anything, hence the power start. being I'm a d.i.y. kinda person, i figured i could make something from the scrap i have laying around, except for the "spray" clutch as it has been commonly called in the past.
i do have an old battery type push mower i was going to convert to a powerful weed whacker to attach to the front corner of my zero turn but that idea fizzled. the zero turn is not the proper motivation tool for a weed whacker.
i checked with everything i could think of and decided late this afternoon and I'm going t5o use some of the parts of the recoil that exists on the mower, and make a pawllholder from a shaft and add a hex drive to that. ill take some photos's as i progress and post them with a "yes" or "wasted my time" report. . . . i love cutting my lawn, and blowing my snow but, sometimes i get out of control, according to my wife. . .
thanks for your comments and suggestions, sometimes ya need another set of ideas to get the juices flowing. . . . .






intjonmiller said:
Similarly my suggestion is not a direct response to your actual question, but might help: Get an electric lawn mower. I have a 13 amp Greenworks model. I got it for $150. It bags, mulches, or side-discharges, just like most gas mowers. Plenty of power for normal lawn maintenance. And it's SO lightweight (honestly, my 8 year-old daughter could handle it if I trusted her with a spinning blade) that the lack of self-propelled drive hasn't bothered me for one minute in the two years I've owned it.

It couldn't be simpler. It has a DC motor directly driving the blade (with permanently sealed bearings), there's a bridge rectifier to convert the AC power to DC, and the safety switch and power cord. There are no other parts to go bad or replace (I suppose a wheel might break down eventually??). The only maintenance I've done is sharpening the blade a couple times per year and a few weeks ago my wife tried to mow grass taller than the mower with it and the bridge rectifier burned up. I bought 4 new ones for $12 (including shipping from Florida), and it only took a few minutes and seven torx screws to install the new one (once I had it). I can't even get the air filter for my (recently inherited, riding) gas mower that cheap.

Honestly, I couldn't be happier with this thing. I thought that having an extension cord would greatly complicate mowing, but where this nice electric was as cheap as the cheapest gas mowers and all of their issues, I decided to try it. It turns out if you've ever managed a power cord while vacuuming then you know how to manage a cord while mowing. Just start on the side of the yard where it's plugged in and then work away from there.

  • No Winterizing
  • No Spring tune-up
  • No gas
  • No oil
  • No oil changes
  • No air filter
  • No spark plug
  • No rip cord
  • No choke
  • No throttle

It's quieter than a gas mower (the blade still makes a fair amount of noise, obviously). The handle collapses and it takes up very little space, with no concern about storing it vertically, either. I can see the appeal of the battery-powered units, but honestly I have no wear-and-tear on expensive batteries (nor did I have to purchase them up front), nor delays while waiting for them to charge. Just an extension cord. And at 13 amps a 14 gauge cord is sufficient for most yards.

I really didn't expect to be this pleased with an electric mower. I would recommend it to anyone.
Click to expand...
 
Okay, I didn't realize you had that much space. Between the fact that it was a rip-cord start mower and that your location says "beautiful, sunny, downtown, northwest wisconsin", and I have no frame of reference for Wisconsin, I assumed that you were dealing with a walk-behind mower. :)
 
davidh said:
i gotta add, i mow about 8 acres here at the farm, hills and valleys, under and between hedges and brush and stuff too. i have a john deere zero turn that does a great job until i try to get under the trees and between the hedges that we planted a few years ago, right on the top of the hill going to the ditch along side the highway. i picked up this john deer rear engine rider thats the right size i think, to get where the other one will not fit. thats the reason. my health will not cooperate with a walk behind, nor a pull start anything, hence the power start. being I'm a d.i.y. kinda person, i figured i could make something from the scrap i have laying around, except for the "spray" clutch as it has been commonly called in the past.
i do have an old battery type push mower i was going to convert to a powerful weed whacker to attach to the front corner of my zero turn but that idea fizzled. the zero turn is not the proper motivation tool for a weed whacker.
i checked with everything i could think of and decided late this afternoon and I'm going t5o use some of the parts of the recoil that exists on the mower, and make a pawllholder from a shaft and add a hex drive to that. ill take some photos's as i progress and post them with a "yes" or "wasted my time" report. . . . i love cutting my lawn, and blowing my snow but, sometimes i get out of control, according to my wife. . .
thanks for your comments and suggestions, sometimes ya need another set of ideas to get the juices flowing. . . . .
Click to expand...

If you Google sprag clutch, you will see all kinds of examples, including some for sale around $10 -15. I remember seeing them in automatic transmissions. The old Bendix type brakes in the bike I had as a kid also used this principle and I expect the high tech bikes today do as well. Scot Silent reel type lawnmowers also used a similar principle.
 
[QUOTits the way most old engines were started even tractos and hitnmiss type.="rick9345, post: 402513, member: 22474"]Look at any old crank started engine IE: Model -T . you will see a very simple self ejecting adapter if one has access to some tools. simple T for the drill and a spiralled groove for engine to start, a drill bit,hacksaw,and file for real basics.[/QUOTE]
Yupp Its the way old engines were started even the old hitnmiss type.
 
another thought, , , requiring an opinion or two: would a 4 thread per inch nut and bolt that loosely fit together work as a spray the unit, maybe ? i think i have some 1" nuts that could be modified quite easily. . . .and lots of 3/4" ones. just thinking outside my box. . .
 
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