Well, that didn't work. Reseating the top seal didn't do a thing, and the mower only runs on the ether starting fluid I'm able to squirt into its air intake. I think I'm out of ideas, but I like this mower a lot. Clearly it's not getting fuel.
Some facts: The entire governor and spark advance have been removed because part of the governor mechanism demolished itself some years ago. I wired the throttle open and it's run fine that way, and I apologize for doing that.
When it began to fail last year I trouble-shot everything for weeks, discovering among other things that the ignition points had stopped conducting electric current due to rust between the moving arm and the contact that's riveted into it. I finally decided to try an electronic module,which has worked splendidly except that it increases gas consumption.
I tried to adapt a throttle control, but that's not nearly as straightforward as I'd like and research continues. Meanwhile I have the throttle just wired open. It ran okay like that for a while, and then failed again. Fuel delivery is the problem.
It has a new float and needle and seat, and I've polished and re-set everything. I noticed that it would sometimes revive when the intake was partially blocked, and I was able to get it to run by madly pumping the primer plunger. Now that doesn't work, either.
Searching for an air leak, I carefully sealed the carburetor to the reed plate and the reed plate to the crank case. Are the weird-looking passages beneath the reed-plate-to-crankcase gasket critical? I may have filled them with gasket sealer.
Yesterday I found that the top crankshaft seal had become unseated, so I shoved it back in and (I hope) glued it securely into place. I was unable to get to the bottom seal because I can't pull the blade stabilizer thing off without bending it. So I re-assembled everything and here I am. There is spark, it runs fine on ether spray, and the fuel primer pump is in poor shape despite my attempts to repair it.
Any and all advice will be appreciated.
Mark Kinsler