Ulysses wrote:

That's what I was gonna say. There's only three things that can go wrong
with them ;-)

I bought the Hayne's small engine repair manual. Several years ago I knew
almost nothing about small engines. I read the book a couple of times and
now I can tear one down, replace a piston, valve, governor gear, whatever in
a couple of hours. And they work when I'm done. Except some of the
carburators are still a mystery to me. You might be surprised how many
parts are interchangeable or substitutable between different manufacturers.


We took the mower to the shop. Their diagnosis was they had to rebuild
the carburetor. Of course, that's always the diagnosis. I decided not to
tackle it after I took off the air cleaner. The primer was not working,
and I couldn't figure out how it was supposed to work. It's as if it
had no vacuum.

Maybe I'll find a junk engine and try tearing it apart. There are lots
of benefits to having a formalized instruction versus trying to
understand a picture or a description. We all learn best in different
ways, I guess.