One of those days...

[dentwizz 1]

Today I went to mow the yard and my Broadmoor was doing alright for once until the right blade made a creek and stopped. Moved on to a fixer upper and the plastic bendix gear snapped off. Moving on to other possibilities I concluded stealing the starter off the parts tractor to make it work. Bleh, just to mow a 1/8th acre:O I have been buying/reconditioning to sell cheap tractors as a side biz lately with moderate success. One thing I have noticed is problems seem to come in clusters oddly enough. For a while it has been MTD steering shaft gears(getting that part number memorizedsm00) Now it is 12hp Briggs Connecting-rods. Anyone done one of those rebuilds? I am waiting on the parts to arrive for a pair of them and trying to research beforehand. One still has valve action and the other one does not. Both turn freely. One appears to have had oil but the PO had an extremely sloped yard so I think he over-tilted the oil. The other was distinctly lack of oil on the dipstick by an owner(still owner) who confessed he didn't do maintenance. Oddly it is that one that has the valve action. Any tips or thoughts?