My mower repair thread

[Vervepipes]

The red MTD is sold. Somebody called right as I was selling it, so I told them that I have a green rear bagger for the same price and they want it. Here she is all spiffied up and ready to sell.




I also got one of the self propelled mowers running, the one with the wired up carb. I cleaned the orange/yellow gunk out of the carb and poked a wire through every hole, put on a better carb bowl seal and a new primer bulb and it runs great! The shroud was also missing the two front screws. 6.75 HP, self propelled, large back wheels. This one should sell easily.


Cleaned up nicely.



Out of mowers to fix again until I either get parts in the mail, or find some more to fix.

 

[Vervepipes]

Some good and some bad tonight. First with the bad. The self propelled mower, right after I listed it I tried to start it and it was surging badly. The carb may need to be cleaned more thoroughly but it did my yard without problems prior to this. Maybe it didn't like getting washed, I'm careful about where I direct water but one of my previous mowers did the same after it got wet, then ran fine when it dried out. I removed the add and put the mower away, I'll check it out tomorrow.

The good is I found a bit of an oddball mower tonight by the curb, an old Craftsman that I've never seen before. It has an aluminum deck, a side mounted Tecumseh 4HP with adjustable throttle on the carb itself, and a grass catcher chute mounted on the top right side of the deck. It's night time so I can't get good pics. The part number doesn't show up in any google searches either. I's tag says
Simpson-Sears, Limited
Toronto, Ontario
Model C950 56441
Serial No 000986

Like I said, I can't find a picture online yet or any info on it. Definitely a keeper to the collection.

 

[Vervepipes]

I give up. I'll need to take pictures of the mower tomorrow and have the community identify what I have. Being Craftsman, it surely wasn't a custom build only for sears. I love a good mystery but I have work in the morning...

 

[Vervepipes]

I found this handy link for Craftsman source codes!
Sears Source Code Chart

The mower was built by Noma, the Canadian subsidiary of Murray. Now I have something to start with.

Finally have something to work with, here's a Kijiji add with the same deck but different engine. Mine is a Tecumseh with no engine brake. Can't upload pics at work, maybe somebody can beat me to it before the add goes away and see if there is an American version. Noma has used foreign machines built in Canada a few times like the GT snow racer and a version of the Stiga Park.

* I thought I put the link in, guess I didn't. The add is gone now

 

[Vervepipes]

Here we are. The deck has a couple of cracks that need to be brazed and the bag has a small hole that I can fiberglass. Can anybody identify this? It has weak spark and the carb float is probably full of gas and overfills. But it's a nice looking, tiny mower. It is smaller than it looks, it must be no more than a 20" deck. It has a plastic fan disc on top of the blade and an air intake for it under the engine. Can somebody help me figure out what this mower is??

 

[Vervepipes]

The self propelled Craftsman ran very well today, I guess it didn't like getting a bath yesterday. I listed it and it sold in about a half hour. Sold it cheap for $100 because of the small gash on the side of the deck and the cracked belt cover. I bought a GPS for the Yaris with the last two mowers I sold to make it easier to use it for picking up mowers, instead of using the van in unfamiliar areas.

 

[Vervepipes]

This deck I got as pictured, has some dents in the deck from who knows what. I had some large back wheels for it, and a 3.5HP Briggs that took parts from 3 different engines to get running. Found a handle and cable that worked and here it is, a frankenmower. This one will go cheap due to the dents, mismatched parts etc but will probably still get me $60 or so since it had little rust. It still needs an oil change, new spark plug, blade sharpened, a longer pull cord and a good wash but here it is all together. It should be ready to go either tomorrow or the weekend.

 

[Vervepipes]

Oil changed, engine speed adjusted, new spark plug, new pull rope, blade sharpened, cleaned up and now ready to sell.




I still can't find anything on that Noma built Craftsman. Even the add for one that I forgot to link wasn't the same, looking back. It's probably even smaller than 20" like I originally thought, it's roughly the size of an electric mower, maybe 18 or 19". Somebody must have seen one of those before?

 

[Vervepipes]

Ah, the add is still there. Not an exact match but it looks like a variation of the deck design, maybe a year to year evolutionary change. It calls it a Canadiana Outdoor Products NT510 hp, I think COP is the actual company name, marketed as NOMA, but owned by Murray?

 

[Vervepipes]

I got a chance to get a very good look at the Noma built Craftsman, and it has a lot more cracks than I thought. Unfortunately I think it will be best suited for the parts bin which is a shame but with at least a dozen cracks I don't know if it's worth trying to save. It sure has a neat factor to it, so I'm kind of torn.