lawn mower, Tecumseh engine

Had a lawn mower with Briggs and Stratton engine that served me well for over 25 years. Finally replaced it with one with a Tecumseh's engine three years ago.

The blink blanky thing packed it in yesterday. Had it tilted up to clean the underside and couldn't pull the starter cord when I put her back down. Pulled plug and rolled it over a few times and squirted some oil in plug hole. Next pull and it fired but didn't start and was seized. Broke it loose by pulling on the blade. Made a grating sound. More oil in the plug hole and sound goes away but turns over real easy and don't fire. Hold my finger over the plug hole and pull the cord and hardly any compression.

Had a new mower with Honda engine home and working in about an hour.

Must be you E. I've got a snow thrower that lives outside (sometimes the tarp stays on it) with a tecumseh engine and I don't even fog it in the spring. It's something like 20 years old or better.

Now the briggs on my lawn tractor leaks oil like the exxon valdez. I don't know what horrors that thing experienced prior to coming here, but I've never had another small engine with that bad of seals.

It's the Canahodian liberal air Egon.

Best of all, no parts available, the company closed down.

Yea, but 20 years ago they may have been built a little different.

Sure are new parts around Franz! Got a whole new mower, motor and all.

This post has been edited by egon on Oct 4 2009, 04:32 PM

Well E it seems we have plenty of that liberal air around this area and my 1976 tecumseh powered snow thrower works just fine. I subscribe to the same maintenance program JT does except when it rains out in the fall I take the tarp off to let it get a good wash'n.

Oh, but the tarp never stays on the darn things. I actually plan on making a lean-to for the side of the shed out of the extra steel I have from the garage ceiling, but that's not exactly a priority.

They stay pretty well washed.

my experience with tecumseh engines is that they work real well and then one day for some unknown reason either lock up or toss a rod. i have a craftsman push mower that i abuse regularly that has a tecumseh engine. it works great.