Thanks for the link to the owners manual. I know about the effects water can have on equipment. At the same time, my grandfather had a Lowes brand rear engine rider that he hosed off every time he used it for 15yrs. I used a rag and no nozzle on the water hose to clean the heavy build up on this one. I downloaded and printed a service manual to help troubleshoot the rectifier. Come to find out my father in law parked because it kept killing batteries and was running bad. The "mechanic" he would bring it to could never fix it. It was running bad because the carb was dirty and it wasn't charging because the rectifier was bad.