On Sun, 12 Mar 2017 19:25:34 -0700, Oren wrote:

What would make the spring give up the ghost from sitting idle all winter?

My guess is that even spring steel gets weak, Huckleberry.

I just got back inside after using it to mow the lawn a bit.

Even though I got it started, the cord was only half tight when the motor
was running, and then pulling it again to restart whenever I stopped showed
the same thing.

So it's not really the motor that winds the string, although when the motor
is running, the string is semi tighter.