Some good and some less good today. This Murray is not ready to sell. Not a pretty mower, but 6 HP is good for neglected yards. This one is missing part of the shroud that I robbed for a better mower but it's going to go cheap and fast. It came to me with the engine is pieces from a power engineering studen who figured she'd try to rebuild a motor, but never got around to reassembly. It has a lot of paint over spray from a gad paint job but again, it's a cheap beater mower.
Cleaned up and replaced the wheels with less wobbly ones
I solved the Noma problem, it has a bad vibration and the rpm's were very low and not consistent. I replaced the spark plug with the proper one, and readjusted the throttle cable, it now runs fine but still shakes and rattles. I tipped it over and it looks like either the blade or crank is bent, but the blade retaining bolt is completely rounded so I have to think about my plan of attack on this one. Maybe I'll grind the sides of the bolt head flat until a wrench will fit snugly on it, or buy some vise grips. I'll have to think about it over the weekend as it's going to rain the whole time.
One of the self propelled Murrays is now running, I borrowed a cable from another and replaced the rotten muffler and it runs beautifully. Now all it needs is the proper cables and a belt and it can be listed.
This little self propelled Murray has a tank full of water and I looked into it more today, it also has a broken self propel cable and the engine is seized solid. I have an engine ready to replace it, more on that in a minute.
As it turns out, my Lawn-Boy Silver series with the Tecumseh motor is not really worth saving. I was going to weld the deck cracks but the underside is damaged with chinks missing and a bad rivet job. The good news is that the engine is not original and has a belt drive pulley, so on to the little Murray it will go.
I took the blade brake and recoil/shroud assembly from the 6.75HP Craftsman below and transferred it onto one of my spare 5HP Quantums. It runs if I pour gas into the carb if I keep the manual throttle all the way full throttle but dies as soon as it's relaxed. I'll transfer over the carb and the rest of the governor gear over another day to make it work well. This guy needs both cables and a belt. I may have another engine I may throw on in the mean time to get it out the door that went on another deck, only to realize it has a deck crack.
I also broke down 3 decks into spare parts for my parts shelves so it was a VERY productive day considering it was a full day at work before starting any of this. I didn't get much out the door, but I think I'm further ahead that I was yesterday for sure with diagnostics and action plans. My beer low light is on.