Here's my 1984ish model.
25" 6HP (i think) tecumsah.
Got it for $20 with a bad motor. turned out the valve spring retainer was broken. machined a new one, cleaned the carb, and it's running again.
Forgot to add that I was also missing the air-cleaner assembly, so I rigged up a brigs and stratton air filter which you should be able to see in the pic above.
Here is mine. It's only a year old, but seems to be in the running for competing with the 1992 model it replaced. We'll see if the Briggs is as reliable as that one with the Kohler was for twenty years!
First is an image of it at work early in the morning before daylight, second is a shot of it pulling my homemade utility wagon I use for things like pinestraw.
You deffinatly have a 6 series, that was the first series with the foot operated parking brake. I'm pretty sure the 6 series started in 1987. What is your model number? 2808 something?
Also the engine, if the original, i think it has the year in the model number.
Yup, 28086S I know it stands for 28" 8HP Series 6 with electric start. I need to decode the serial # to see if that tells me the year, manufacture plant, etc. Trouble finding a decoder for that...