Sam Rourke
Sam Rourke is the maintenance & care editor at Mower Mentor. Sam covers the routine, preventive side of mower ownership: oil changes, blade sharpening and balancing, air-filter and spark-plug tune-ups, deck cleaning, fuel care, winterizing and spring start-up, and the by-the-hours maintenance schedules that tie it all together. Sam came to this work through fifteen years of small-engine service, holds Equipment & Engine Training Council (EETC) certification, and has run a Briggs & Stratton and Honda GCV service bench long enough to know which maintenance steps actually matter and which are dealership upsells. Every procedure on the site is one Sam has done on a real machine, photographed step by step, with the torque values and part numbers that the manual buries. Sam's own fleet - a gas walk-behind, a battery mower, and an aging riding mower - is the documented test bed for the maintenance calendar. Sam lives in the US Great Lakes region.
Published work
Articles by Sam Rourke
Maintenance & Seasonal CareWash foam filters in warm soapy water, dry fully, then re-oil. Never wash paper. Includes a safe-vs-unsafe cleaner table and the light-box replace test.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareSoak the threads 30 minutes, then rock it loose with a 6-point socket. The full escalation ladder, plus extractor and Heli-Coil fixes if it snapped.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareCrimp a new terminal onto a torn lawn mower spark plug wire for about $4, or replace the coil when the wire is cracked. Decision table, steps, air-gap spec.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareChange a lawn mower spark plug in 8 steps: 5/8 or 13/16 socket, gap it to your engine spec (the box's 0.035 is wrong), 3/8 turn past seated.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareMatch your air cleaner cover to your engine number, not your mower badge. Briggs, Honda, Kohler and Toro part numbers, plus the fix for a cover that falls off.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareMatch your air filter to the engine number, not the mower brand. Cross-reference table, size chart and 40 filters measured on calipers.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareStop - don't start a mower with gas in the air filter. The carb float is overflowing. Check the oil for fuel, swap the filter, fix the needle and seat.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareTested B'laster's tune-up spray on 6 stored machines against a real oil, filter and plug service. See what the can fixes in 22 minutes, and what it can't.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareTune up any gas mower in 6 steps - fuel, oil, air filter, plug, blade, deck. Push vs riding, DIY vs shop costs, and a printable checklist.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareClean your Husqvarna air filter the right way: tap the paper, wash the foam, and skip the oil on dual-stage. Locator by body style, plus replace-now signs.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareChange a Husqvarna spark plug in 15 minutes: find it by body style, gap it to your engine spec, torque it right. V-twin riders, you have two.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareNo. Dirt scores the cylinder within one dry cut, and 17 test sessions show how fast. Plus why yours runs better with the filter off, and what to do.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareCheck 7 clogged air filter symptoms, run the 2-minute light test, and get the clean-or-replace call for paper, foam and dual filters.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareMatch a black, wet or oily lawn mower spark plug to the decoder: dry soot means rich, wet gas means flooded, oil means rings. Cause plus fix.
Maintenance & Seasonal CareCheck 5 symptoms, read the plug, then run the blue-spark test. Includes gap specs by engine brand, the stale-gas triage and when to clean vs replace.