How To Convert Your Mower into a Generator

Spring is in the air and with it comes yard work. For some we have already started planting our gardens, others are tending to their chickens and most have to start cutting the grass. I know you may hear the Home Depot song playing in your mind as you think of mulching and planting and sprucing up after winter’s snooze but I have already been cutting my grass and it is due again for another visit with the lawnmower.

As I started to think about getting out there and cutting the grass, I wondered if there would be a use for items like my trusty lawnmower when the grid goes down. Why? Because if you are like me, the last thing you are going to worry about is a nicely trimmed yard.

Heck, we all might need to tear up the pretty green carpet to make way for additional garden capacity and if that happens, what could we do with that mower? Even if we didn’t have a grid-down emergency what other purposes could our mower serve?

A quick search on the internet quickly brought up a couple of great ideas. The first was the reason for this article and the site theepicenter.com has fairly detailed plans for converting your lawn mower’s engine, a spare alternator, wires, and know-how into a fully functioning generator.
You will need the following tools/parts.

  • Lawn Engine motor
  • Alternator – you can usually find one of these very easily in a junkyard or broken down car.
  • Electrical Wires – Think wire harness for your car battery
  • A belt – for an engine, not your pants.
  • Cast Iron Pulley
  • Mounting Bracket

Here is the link to the full instruction document on converting your mower into a survival generator, it is very in-depth with great pictures and information.

Video of turning a lawnmower into a generator
Here is a video showing this concept but they took it a step further and converted the lawnmower engine to run off of propane. This could be very useful in an emergency situation where there was no gas, but propane could be used off of your tanks on the grill.

Bonus: Convert a Weed Eater into a Boat Motor!
We thought this was really cool, this guy turned an old weed-eater into a johnboat motor! Prepper ingenuity is endless!

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