Spotted this thing for sale by the side of the road for $100 about two weeks ago. I had my son call the guy and he offered it to my son for $75. We went over to look at it, looked very solid but appeared to have been stored outside with faded paint. Had no deck mounted and the original tires. Guy kept claiming it would start smoking black smoke and choke itself out when he tried to pull it from the back with his dump cart to put things up for sale. Said he didn't want to rip my son off because the problems were so severe with the carb. So $75 was the offer because he didn't want to rip off my 13 year old son who he thought could get a better deal elsewhere.
Turned out it had the deck (though he didn't have it mounted). He claims he used to have it to cut grass at one time but his yard was very small, smaller than my front yard. So we picked it up Sunday and I spent most of the last two days fiddling with it.
First he lost the cover for the air filter and instead had a large piece of foam functioning much in the way the oil foam filters are in small Briggs engines. The oil looked ancient and came out like water. I dumped the oil and put some cheap stuff in that I had to make sure there were no problems. I disassembled the fuel pump on the carb and cleaned it. I cleaned the main jet in the carb. I jumpstarted it with a car since the battery was dead. After a little fooling around I was able to get it to a nice smooth idle. First I've worked on a Briggs opposed 18hp too. I drove it around the yard for the better part of an hour in circles trying to use up the gas. Oil still looked clean.
Seeing as that it didn't burn oil and ran fine I went out and bought new spark plugs, front tires and a battery. I cleaned it all up and it looks practically brand new underneath (small yard). I sharpened the blades and mounted the deck (though it does not appear original to the mower) greased all fittings. I ordered the proper air filter cover as well. My guess is it'll be cutting grass by the end of the week or whenever the air filter cover gets here. Think I'll have about $175 in it (well $100 since my son paid the $75 with his mowing money confident I could fix it).
Anyone know what if any attachments were available for this thing? It looks like it could tow implements of some kind and was manufactured probably in 1984 based on what I could find.
Turned out it had the deck (though he didn't have it mounted). He claims he used to have it to cut grass at one time but his yard was very small, smaller than my front yard. So we picked it up Sunday and I spent most of the last two days fiddling with it.
First he lost the cover for the air filter and instead had a large piece of foam functioning much in the way the oil foam filters are in small Briggs engines. The oil looked ancient and came out like water. I dumped the oil and put some cheap stuff in that I had to make sure there were no problems. I disassembled the fuel pump on the carb and cleaned it. I cleaned the main jet in the carb. I jumpstarted it with a car since the battery was dead. After a little fooling around I was able to get it to a nice smooth idle. First I've worked on a Briggs opposed 18hp too. I drove it around the yard for the better part of an hour in circles trying to use up the gas. Oil still looked clean.
Seeing as that it didn't burn oil and ran fine I went out and bought new spark plugs, front tires and a battery. I cleaned it all up and it looks practically brand new underneath (small yard). I sharpened the blades and mounted the deck (though it does not appear original to the mower) greased all fittings. I ordered the proper air filter cover as well. My guess is it'll be cutting grass by the end of the week or whenever the air filter cover gets here. Think I'll have about $175 in it (well $100 since my son paid the $75 with his mowing money confident I could fix it).
Anyone know what if any attachments were available for this thing? It looks like it could tow implements of some kind and was manufactured probably in 1984 based on what I could find.
