Lawn Mower Compression & Dislocated Shoulders

[HeyBub]

Your choice. It'll take less time to fix than to buy a new one.

[Stormin Mormon]

The last time I had one do that, the blade was loose from the crank shaft. Flip the mower on its side, and see if the blade is tight.

The other person's suggestion about flywheel out of time, that's also very possible.

[DerbyDad03]

Thank you for ignoring the 3rd reply in this thread. :-)

[Oren]

How _old_ is your T-shirt? :-/

-- Oren

..through the use of electrical or duct tape, achieve the configuration in the photo..

[Bob F]

The next time you start it, the rope will break. Then you'll need to fix that too.

It's not that big of a deal to fix. Get brave and give it a try.

Bob

[Stormin Mormon]

It's what I do best. What did you say?

[DerbyDad03]

A note of thanks to all who offered help...

So I finally decided to attack the mower last weekend - I mowed Saturday morning and had no problems other than the hard starts and knocking, same symptoms as before.

Later that day my son tried to start the mower and found that the blade was extremely loose, which was not the case during earlier inspections. He tightened the blade, tried to start it again and the blade loosened up immediately. It turned out that in addition to the starting problems, the welds on the driver-blade assembly had broken free. This is the part that not only secures the blade to the shaft, but also has the pully that powers the front-wheel drive.

Now I have to either fix or trash the mower. I pulled the engine cover and shroud to find (as many you suggested) that the flywheel key was broken and the flywheel had shifted significantly. Now I had to figure out how to get the flywheel off. A quick Google search found this page which shows a home made tool for pulling the flywheel on Tucumseh engine:

Coincidentally, that's located at the same repair site that Bob suggested.

Anyway, 15 minutes later I had the flywheel off and was on my way to the mower repair shop. $70 dollars later I had a flywheel key, a driver-blade assembly, a drive belt and a new mulching blade. Since the mower absolutely needed a blade anyway, I figure the repair cost was really only $50.

The mower now starts with no more than 2 pulls when cold, half a pull when warm.

Thanks again!

[Harry K]

Thanks for the update.

Harry K

[Bob F]

And the next time, you can answer this question.

Bob