Montgomery Ward PowrKraft 18-46

[Rivets]

It's your money, you can do what you want. Tires may be hard and cracked from sitting in the weeds. Wiring could have problems due to mice. This is just an 18 year old Murray, good luck if you get it, I hope you don't need it.

 

[reynoldston]

I don't know how anyone can tell from a picture what condition a mower is? The only way to know is look at it and run it. It may or may not need a lot of bearings, does it have a engine knock, etc,? Buying any used mower can be a gamble, I would say for a 100$ dilivered sure sounds like a good deal. Like you said if you can do your own work plus parts you could end upwith a nice looking mower.

 

[natenkiki2004]

Rivets, your pessimism makes me smile Of course I don't need it now, it's frosted a few times and I've already mowed everything with my push mowers. This riding mower will sit around (with me working on it) until spring. In the pictures, the tires don't look cracked and even if they have slight cracking, that's fine with me. My garden cart has similar tires that have a fair amount of cracks yet haul rock and soil just fine. I honestly like that it's made by MTD, every time I've contacted their support, they've been extremely helpful with information and parts look up.

reynoldston, I was mostly referring to cosmetics. I know that still doesn't mean much but they can be a slight indication of how the machine was treated. There is sun damage but it doesn't look like it's sat outside for years and rusted together. I have no idea about bearings but the machine will get a once-over when I get it and if it needs replacing, I'll replace it. As far as engine knock, we'll see when it gets here. It is a gamble, definitely but my snowblower was the same way. Bought it for $75 and put another $75 into it in parts and I have a fully working & functional snowblower instead of paying $800-$2000 for a new one.

*EDIT*
Let me ask this; at what price is this mower a really good deal? What price would make it tempting?

 

[reynoldston]

I find for some reason when I buy a used mower it needs mower deck bearings which is no big job or cost, Like I said a picture can't tell much, As far as tires go they just run low presure, slow speed, and as for myself a bottle of green tire slim does wonders, I change my own so I don't mine the mess if I do have to change one. It sound like you can do your own repairs so as I see it go for it. Its when you need a repair shop to do your work it can get expensive, Yes I bought used JD 180 a few years back for resale and when I got done with all the repairs I lost money on it so it can happen and it looked well cared for. There again you are biying this mower for your own use.

 

[natenkiki2004]

I do feel comfortable with the repairs. I'm not inclined to tear apart the engine or anything but if the engine runs, doesn't smoke and makes no odd noises, I feel confident that I can do anything else to the mower with all the diagrams and parts available online. It's unlikely but even if I have to sink $200 into it (the battery will be expensive but I have a spare car battery I will try to use) that is worth it to me.

I do have 2 other projects that I put too much money into, lessons learned there. When I do work, I do try to think of resale just in case, you never know. So, I think that as long as I don't get say, $300 into it, I shouldn't have too huge of losses, as long as it fully works, if I try to resell it.

The guy that's selling is going to let me know what part in the steering mechanism he thinks needs to be replaced and I'll look it up & factor that into the cost.

 

[reynoldston]

It seems the last mower battery I bought was only 20 dollars from NAPA. You can't buy a car battery for that. I find that belts pullys can cost a lot of money,

 

[natenkiki2004]

I'll have to check NAPA, see if they can get something equivalent. I looked online from the diagrams and it requires a 275 CCA battery which runs $80-$100. I would prefer a sealed AGM battery but we'll see. No sense dropping that kind of cash on a battery if I can use my old car battery

 

[reynoldston]

80 to 100 dollars for a lawn mower battery, That will buy you a lot of 20 batterys for more years then you will have the mower. The last battey I payed over a 100 dollars for was for my Harley Davidson because I could only buy it from a dealer. One of my customers has a car battery in his mower because he telles me he has less problims with it, He so far has pinched wires with the large battery and burned up his generator,

 

[natenkiki2004]

Hmmmm, yea, the extra capacity that the car battery might be too much for the generator to charge up. Here's the battery that replaces the MTD part number in the diagrams:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/425-449-BATTERY-MTD-753-0608-BRAND-NEW-BEST-PRICE-EBAY-/270887753877
Again, I really don't want to go with lead acid if I can avoid it. Sealed would be more expensive but no maintenance and low discharge rates would be great.

Do you remember what the battery was you bought for $20? Perhaps a NAPA number?

Talked with the owner more today, he says a bushing in the left steering wheel assembly is missing. Looking up the diagram, all the bushings/spacers seem to be at most $9-$12. Piece of cake.

One thing I neglected to mention is that I'm a computer guy by trade so one of the first things I'll do is probably go through the entire electrical system and clean/replace the connectors and make sure everything is good. That's the kind of thing I like doing

 

[natenkiki2004]

Well, in 12 hours I'll have the mower delivered. The guy called and said he fired it up without issue to load it onto his truck. I'll post pictures when I get it tomorrow.