Just picked up a freebie Sears/Carftsman

I took a few more pics. I also happen to have a hood that looks like it might work for now.

I dropped the deck off and looked it over. Its a little on the rough side.

Man,I wish the mower shops around here would give away a Suburban with an Onan,and a 3 point electric hitch !...you cant even bribe the ones here to let you haul their scrap away.....

Despite the deck looking tough,I bet its entirely repairable,they aren't stamped tin ,ike the box store tractors decks...a mig welder and some sheet metal and that can be brought back to decent condition...if the spindles are OK it can be fixed!..

I made a couple jumper wires for the safety switches, sprayed wd-40 and a couple squirts of oil in the cylinders and cranked it over. I then filed the points, got spark, put the plugs back in, and it fired , but only on the rear cylinder. I pulled the front plug and found no compression. I think I have a stuck valve so I guess I need to pull the head.

The exhaust valve was stuck open. Just gave the stem a shot of WD-40 and gave it a slight twist and it snapped shut. Looks like this had some water in it at one time.

I got it back together and had it running on a little gas shot into the carb. The carb wasn't working so I pulled the top off and found what looks like graham cracker crumbs. Blew it out with air, cleaned a few passages, and tried it again. It runs, but needs a lot of choke so I guess its time to pull the carb. Do you have to pull the manifold to get the carb off? While the engine was running it sounded good.

Pulled the fuel tank for cleaning and replace the leaky fuel line.

The front wheel was damaged on this tractor so we are going to repair it by cutting the bad side off and welding another piece on. The wheel was damaged when the PO ran over it with a trailer.

Blasted the wheel and got it welded up. Just grind and paint left and we're back in business.