I was out mowing and it started running rough then quit. It wouldn't start back up I checked all the usual and obvious things but it wouldn't restart. Checked oil it was good... I'm very meticulous about oil changes and maintaining the mower so not sure exactly what happened. Took it to my local dealership and they said it had two scorched pistons, valve was stuck on one cylinder and push rod and head damage to the other cylinder. So here I am looking for solutions that won't come back to bite me.
That does not gell
Unless the mower sufferred a catastrophic oil loss or injested a pile of solid items the engine should not have that much damage
I have repaired several engines where one of the screws that hold the butterfly in position have been sucked into the engine and all they needed was removal of the remains of the screws and a bit of smoothing out . And one of these "had problems starting " for several years.
Now a similar problem ended up being young children "helping daddy" by pouring a dirt-water "oil" mix into the engine and another one was rocks dropped into the air ram by little fingers as well but th one that floored me was the kids that "cleaned " the pre-filter by pouring water through it till all of the dirt went away, while it was still in the mower , you got to love the little darlings .
So I for one would like a second opinion .
If you have maintained the engine as you have posted that mower should have been good for 30 + years .