MTD YardMan 1998 vintage

I bought it brand new at Sears and it seemed to have some good features. I liked the Kohler oil pressure fed OHV engine and the spin on automotive filter.

So I have about an acre to mow and quite a bumpy yard. I don't think I ever cleaned under the deck except about 2 or 3 times. I'm surprised it's lasted this long.

Problems:
Somewhere around the 10 year mark the float needle let gas seep into the combustion chamber and it would hydraulicly lock the engine when I tried to start it. So I put a gas shut off valve in there. I didn't know it but the crank case was full of gas and I mowed probably 3 more hours like that. :00000060:

Second prob and I don't know why but if the gas tank got under 1/3 of a tank and I was trying to mow up hill, the mower would act like it was running out of gas. No biggie, I just kept it filled up.

With the choke on, it puffs a little smoke when I first fire it up... and by now it probably should, but it doesn't consume any more oil than that as far as I can tell.

Last problem was two of the bolt fell out that holds the spindles and the thing started vibrating really bad. I just now fixed that last week and noticed a little tiny rust hole in the deck as I was scraping some excess grass off.

So after 18 years, the mower never needed a belt or new tires and the hydrostatic tranny always was great to use. MTD gets bashed a lot, but this mower has really held up better than I could have hoped for! :trink39: