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I make my own gaskets for carburetors when necessary.

By electronic module you mean SAM unit (spark advance module), there is no testing these. Look up the symptoms online of a faulty SAM unit. I replaced mine on my Scag this year after 20 years of use. Bought a used one on EBay for $75 versus $575 new. Be sure you want it because typically no...

The chances of 5 tensioner springs being defective and breaking are pretty small. Is the shop going to set up a chair in your yard and watch you mow until the tensioner spring breaks? Need to recheck your mower, source another supplier for spring, and try another dealer if need be. Is this the...

A little bit of heat from heat gun, small chisel and hammer and the cover will come off and you can reuse it after completely removing the old sealant from cylinder head and valve cover. Permatex Right Stuff is the way to go.

Whether it is a steering damper, or deck pulley, or whatever part, I have had good results with aftermarket parts. Lots of aftermarket parts have been used by me over the years, and I don’t have complaints or comebacks. Occasionally, such as ignition coils, I will use OEM parts. When OEM...

No

No prime, no start. If fuel is not shooting into carburetor throat when primed, then the gasket is not sealing and/or the air filter base is warped. If it won’t stay running, then the carburetor is not clean or maybe just the main jet. Recheck and try it again.

If your compression tester is accurate, then 155 psi is really excellent. I would suggest a leak down test. Also, possibly removing the carburetor and cleaning it. 1300 hours is fairly high hours, so I find the compression tester results suspect.

A friend of mine in the outdoor power equipment business told me about this issue. Checking for grass buildup. Have only seen it one time on all the riding mowers I have worked on over the years. He says he sees it a few times a year.

Deck has developed slop and wear over time. Looks like another crappy Troy Bilt design that needs to be just right to work correctly. You should recheck everything visually and with your hands; the tension, pulleys, spindles, alignment of belt, etc.

So this is a trimmer. Verify you have spark. Add a little fuel into the throat of carburetor and see if it starts and runs for a few seconds on the fuel you added. If so, you know you most likely have a fuel delivery issue.

Obviously something inside the trigger mechanism or throttle cable or throttle butterfly on carburetor is hanging open. 80-90% of wide open throttle is really fast, so recheck everything. Great trimmer by the way.

Doneski. Toast. Cooked.

It doesn’t looked drilled out to me. Anyway, you will need to drill it out slowly and carefully and keep stepping up on drill bit sizes. If you have left handed drill bits that might do it when you get close to bolt being drilled out.

The scoring on the left side of piston is significant. Granted being able to view with other pictures, or better yet, in person would be ideal. However, calling this minor scoring, or fooling yourself with a 120 psi compression reading, is not right. Erratic idle, hard starting, not staying...

Timing is set by the flywheel key. If partially sheared, or sheared, it will affect timing. You need to remove the muffler and look at the condition of the piston, rings, and cylinder. Are they scored or smooth. Only experience will let you determine the amount of scoring unless they are totally...

$400 will buy a mid grade gas backpack blower. If you want a piece of equipment that will perform, and last for many years, this is the way to go. Stihl, Husqvarna, Echo, or Redmax, accept no other substitutes. If you need to blow in the fall for leaves and go with a battery blower, be prepared...

The TS series on these Husqvarna riding mowers are the better built mowers versus the YT series. If you only add 30 minutes to cutting time with a rider, that would be a miracle. Usually a zero turn is about twice as fast as rider, so it should take you more like 3.5 hours with this riding mower.

I use sandpaper to clean spark plug, blow it off with air gun, and gap it. I have cleaned hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of spark plugs over the years, and never had a problem. Rarely even replace spark plugs.

You do not want to use carburetor spray to start a 2-stroke engine. Use a little premix fuel squirted into the carburetor or spark plug hole. You can wash down the piston, rings, and cylinder and score them potentially. Remember, there is not oil in the engine, the oil is mixed with the fuel.

And yet, valve adjustments are out of sight, out of mind, Not uncommon to see engines that have never had the valves adjusted. Often, by this point it results in broken or bent push rods.

Average life of a mower battery without extra trickle charging is about 3 years. If your stator or regulator/rectifier is bad, you would never get 1 to 2 years out of a battery. Still think it is fuel flow or carburetor issue. Fuel pumps are almost almost pulse pumps on mowers, and choking it is...

Gear box may have a fill/check plug on side of it. If so, remove plug and top off with 80W-90 oil until it comes out the plug.

Those temperatures if coming off of muffler with a digital thermometer are really low. Also, the temperature on each exhaust ideally should read fairly close to each other. Looks like a double barrel Nikki carburetor.

Hook up a nurse fuel tank temporarily (separate from one on the mower). Check intake gaskets to be sure they are good and not leaking. Correctly clean the OEM carburetor and reinstall. Having to manipulate the choke to keep engine running means you have a fuel to air mixture issue. Does the...

That engine has a compression release so the acceptable range when testing is about 72 to 85 psi. So your 90 is reading high probably because you are not using the right compression tester for small engines. The fact that you come up with 1% loss on a leak down test is laughable. Any reading...

It is the spark plug being bad less than one percent of the time in my experience.

So how did your Kawasaki die? Break a connecting rod, etc.? Why did it die? Lack of lubrication, cooling fins blocked, 2000 plus hours?

These driveshafts are a royal pain to work on. Only worked on one on a Cub Cadet, and one on a Grasshopper. Never again.

Clean OEM carburetor and reinstall.

Off course the piston, rings, and cylinder are expensive. So you are telling me you have 140 psi compression and the piston, rings, and cylinder are badly scored? Doesn’t add up. Also, you actually took the cylinder off to look at it, versus removing the muffler and looking at everything that way?

Two hands, a shop towel and a grunt, to tighten oil filters. Never had one back off on me. However, have seen many that are loose when changing oil, and a few that destroyed the engine because not installed tight enough.

There is hope if you do the repair yourself correctly, or if you can find a shop that will repair the leaks.

These blowers are not that great to begin with. You have dumped lots of time and money with parts into it. If it doesn’t run, forget it. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Those “paper clip” looking choke linkages sometimes get bent and hang up. You can try fiddling with the linkage until it releases smoothly. Option two is to manually release the choke linkage yourself once engine is running.

A good accurate tachometer is a must for small engines. 3600 RPMs is maximum for a small engine. Most engines are best set at around 3150-3250. A larger 27 horsepower engine can be bumped up a bit. I would not bump it up to 3600. How many hours on engine and the model of engine?

The whole “warranty” thing from toasters to a $100,000 vehicle basically is often poorly understood. Most of the time warranty covers manufacturers defects. That does not mean in a case such as an engine, covering lack of maintenance such as: Infrequent oil changes Running it low on oil over...

If the engine runs good at all RPMs except WOT with blades on, then the flywheel key is fine.

Yes, angle discharge chute about 45 degrees and let the grass fly out as far as possible.

Remove carburetor and clean thoroughly and reinstall. Check to be sure choke is working properly.

Nikki double barrel carburetor. Need better pictures to clarify what you are asking.

Don’t run it like that or it will grenade pronto. Reset governor and when you start it, be ready to manually override the speed immediately.

$110 per hour in my area is average. Most expensive dealer is John Deere and they are at $190 per hour. Go ahead and take it off and take it apart if you want to save money. You will then realize why shops charge what they do.

It isn’t just the crankshaft, it is the muffler, the throttle and choke cables, the mounting bolt locations, and having to hard wire everything because the male female plugs won’t work.

Lawn services mow all day. I usually mow right in the middle of the day when it is hot.

You have done way more that most people. Most people stomp on the pedal over and over and give up and buy another mower. This specific transaxle with a black plastic case has its share of known issues. I would try to find a used transaxle (needle in a haystack), or look for another good used...

My shop is not air conditioned either and I have been roasting all summer. It is your decision to charge for parts only. I have had a few charity cases in the past as well. These days my time has value, I stay a couple of weeks out on repairs, my skills I have earned and learned, and I have...

I was raised in Alabama and that is what we always used in mowers and cars, 10W-40 oil. Been in Missouri last 30 years and now always use 10W-30 in mowers. Cars these days are often different on oil.