Good thinking, I'll do that. Reading back over the thread I saw that
ILENGINE called it right off the bat but when I checked for loose mounting bolts at the time, I was shaking the engine back and forth. By the time I decided to look again, I tried twisting the engine right-to-left and back and that's when I noticed the play.
Re: pulling the shroud, I only pull it when I have a problem to fix and have never found the head and fins particularly dirty, but it's an easy enough task so I'll start doing that at the first of every season. I've gotten ten years out of it so far and I've been DIY-ing all the repairs for the last five years or so, so I'm hoping that good maintenance will help me keep it going.
