Thanks a lot LNG, and thanks for the welcome two-stroke! It is a nice little mower.
I can't believe I am a LB fan. For the longest time I thought they were terribly over-priced, and I felt the owners of them were overpaid idiots. I used to buy lawnmowers used through the newspaper for less than $50. Then about 12 years ago I bought a house and the previous owner let me have his Lawn-Boy for a song as he was moving to a condo and didn't need it anymore. After I used it I thought - boy am I the idiot - this lawnmower is awesome. You only get what you pay for as they say. I wouldn't use any other brand of lawnmower now.
The previous owner was meticulous and the mower was in great shape with all the manuals, mechanics guide, extra parts, A-grease, etc. About 5 years ago I had to get the axle welded, and just recently I thought it was needing some attention so I have been working on it a lot recently.
So - it seemed to be running rough and the self-propelled was weak. I took the float apart, dried it, boiled it, and dipped it in PVC pipe cement to coat it. Then redipped it the next day to give it a good "shell" of PVC. Then new carb/float gaskets, float valve, spark plug, drive rollers and new back tires (OEM but with more offset). New plunger tubing. Set the carb, and then regreased it with waterproof marine grease from Wal-Mart (nice grease and way more waterproof than A-grease). Used 30W on oiling points per the manual. Sharpened the blade with a grinder followed by a file to trim the wire-edge off. Boy - oh - boy does it work now! I have another set of wheels on order along with some extra sponge filters and the proper lever. I'd like to get another top cover - not new necessarily but one that is in decent shape.
For the new front wheels I ordered the p/n for the back ones. Probably the only difference is that the back ones have softer tread. My thinking of using back tires on the front is that 10 or 15 years from now I can switch them when the rollers wear out the treads on the back. That's it guys. What do you think?