Owning a lawn edger is like owning a car. To keep it running smoothly, you should periodically perform maintenance to keep it working the way you want. Here are the maintenance steps you should take to keep your McLane Briggs & Stratton Powered Edger in good operating condition.
1. Oil – When you first buy your lawn edger, you will probably need to fill it with oil (about 2/3 of a quart). McLane edgers do not ship with oil, and running the engine before filling the edger with oil can ruin the engine. Use a 5W-30 or 10W-30 grade synthetic motor oil. After the first 5-8 hours of operation, you will want to drain and replace the oil. After that, you will normally only need to replace the oil every 50 hours of operation. Personally, I like to replace the oil in my edger at the beginning of each mowing / cutting season.
2. Air Filter – McLane edgers can come with two types of filters: an oval filter or a rectangular-shaped filter with a pre-filter pad. If you use an oval filter, you will need to clean and / or replace the air filter on your edger every 25 hours. If your lawn is extremely dry and dusty, you will probably want to check your air filter more often. If you use a rectangular filter with a pre-filter, you will want to check and clean or replace the pre-filter after every 25 hours of operation. You can easily clean the pre-filter with water and liquid detergent. Make sure it is completely dry before putting it back on your edger. You will not need to replace the rectangular filter until after 100 hours of operation. However, when I check the pre-filter after 25 hours of operation, I also take out the rectangular filter and tap it against my other hand to remove some of the dust that will have accumulated.
3. Grease – McLane edgers have two grease nipples on the trimmer head body. You will want to add grease to these two accessories twice per mowing season. I recommend doing it first at the beginning of the season and the second time in the middle of the season. Use multipurpose grease n. 2 on your grease gun.
4. Spark Plug – At the beginning of the cutting / edge trimming season, remove the spark plug from your edger and check its condition. After that, check every 50 hours of edger operation. After 100 hours of operation, you will want to replace the spark plug. Be sure to check the spark plug gap with a gap gauge (the correct gap is 30 “(0.76 mm)) before reinstalling your old spark plug or installing a new one.
5. Blade – At the beginning of the season, check the condition of the trimmer blade on your edger. If it is worn, replace it with a new blade.
6. General Maintenance – Several times during the season, do the following: (1) Check and tighten all bolts and screws on your edger, especially the trimmer head pulley guard, blade guard, and locknut. blade assembly (which are subjected to a lot of vibration during operation of the edger); (2) inspect the pulley belt to make sure it does not show excessive wear or deterioration (if so, replace it); and (3) lubricating the front axle and wheels of the edger (for example, using 3-in-1 oil or a spray lubricant).
Performing these maintenance steps will help keep your edger in good operating condition for many cutting / edge trimming seasons.
