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Originally Posted by Kevin in NJ
Good luck finding the old mowers in my area!
Most are long gone to scrap. It is amazing about how few you find in the trash today. I have a newer lawnmower I picked from the trash, it sucks. It has some kind of compression lowering thing on the valves, a crappy carb and a funky throttle linkage. The carb has a bunch of rubber that goes bad and so it cant be primed. The seal on the bowl was bad. Also they use some rubber o-rings to hold plastic main jet in place. Plus this on had some issues with the linkage from someoone trying to fix it.
I am in the market for a new one.
Speaking of new. The new new ones have all plastic carbs. You can use a metric hex to open the bottom of the carb to drain the water out. They will need the jet cleaned. Only 2 screws to take the carb off. It was easy to get apart.
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i see them all the time in the trash - none knows or wants to fix anythng anymore in todays society.
yes mowers nowadays feel like their put together with old milk jugs and soup cans. I hate working on them. The old (when i say old i say like 1990- earlier) B&S were some diehard engines. that little 3.5 thing they had for 30 years was a tried and true design where 98% of the problems was dirt in the carb or very rarely magneto died.
I think all of our current mowers were garbage can throwaways...only one we bought at K mart like 15+ years ago. Just cleaned the carb on it 2 years ago due to dirt and such finally clogging it up. Deck has rusted thru in several spots, handle broke and is currently broke again. Been ran outa oil twice. bent the blade/sheared blade adapter at least 9 times. Bent the crankshaft but a piece of pipe on the end and eyeball straight it runs good as new with little vibration. Knocks like a doorknocker under a load though and has for 10+ years. At this point its a game to see how long it lasts
Want to know something funny? The new B&S engines claim they never need oil changed, just topped off...
I asked the salesman so how often does it need topped off? How many mows per quart do i get haha.
Also the #1 problem with pushmowers is the handle usually breaks eventually - well theyve sped up that happening by making the entire rear portion of the mower plastic and using 6 screws holding it to the crappily stamped and painted (ones i looked at didnt have anything but overspray on the bottom) thin steel deck. When i say go find a 30 year old pushmower made in the late 80's and restore it DO IT!!!
and FYI if your looking at craftsman mowers and see one that doesnt seem to list an engine manufacturer anywhere on the tag or engine itself im 99% sure its the same Chinese company that supplies the Predator engines to harbor freight. I've heard nothing but good things about those engines.