I received this Briggs and Stratton lawnmower from my Father in Law who bought it from a flea market 7 years ago for $40. In those 7 years I’ve abused the dickens out of it and only done 2 oil changes in that time. It started being hard to start or randomly shutting off. I figured I finally killed it, but decided to clean the carb, changed the oil, etc, and saw the governor spring had been stretched out. Seeing as I had already given up on it, I clipped it shorter and tried to start it. Second pull and started purring like new.
No one around me cares, but I figured this group would appreciate how good these small engines really are. I’m sharpening the blade and going to cut the yard tomorrow.
Damn, good job. I was struggling with an old Briggs and Stratton and haven’t had time to get it working yet. It’s probably from the late 80s early 90s. (Snapper brand, nothing fancy, no self drive or what not, wasn’t out yet I don’t think). I pulled the carb out and tried cleaning it with gas/starter fluid, replaced the spark plug. Got it to start up and start running but I assume it was running off starter fluid from the carb. It cut itself off after about 15 seconds (which was longer than I expected for just running off the carburetor ether. The springs are probably all stretched out. Need to try to get new ones in spring and actually put some time into it. It’s hard to convince myself to put the time/money into it when it’s that age