"I can tell you what caused the engine to BLOW. It seem that B&S didn't do a good job of fastening the SCREWS that hold the butterfly inside the carb. They rattle loose and get sucked down the intake into the cylinder. That it turn gets smashed against the head by the piston and from that point on you're in trouble. Look at the piston and see if there are tell tale "Screw thread" marks on it. Of course B&S isn't going to admit it, but I had it happen TWICE." This happens periodically but is not common. PLUS, the piston smashing the screw into the head will not break or cause the engine to throw a rod. You are right, the screw will embed in the soft aluminum of the piston and the head. By the way, B&S does not make the carbs. The screw coming out of the carb butterfly may cause the engine to over speed resulting in failure unless the engine is shut down immediately. Most common cause of current B&S engine throwing a rod is carb float needle leaking, people don't check the oil when they start the engine and the oil contaminated with oil causes failure, oil not checked before starting and being low on oil OR just plain old not changing oil when it should be. Walt Conner

Sven, I can't see any of your pictures. I have a 26624 that looks like this: http://www.newhavenpower.com/toro26624Bagger.html Here are a few more: http://www.newhavenpower.com/toro_STANDARD_MOWERS_INDEX.html

"could be a bad/missing magnet onthe flywheel, but that one is rare. i have not owned a briggs engine yet that did not have a coil go bad on it. the one on my generator eats coils at a rate of about one per 100 hours" First off, there is only one magnet on the flywheel that affects ignition. Second, I have been working with small engines for about 60 years. The only B&s engine I have ever encountered that had regular ignition coil problems were the horizontal twins, 40, 42 and 46 series. Other B&S CDI coils very seldom fail and I would say are among the most reliable in the industry. If you have one regularly going bad in 100 hours, you have some other problem causing it, probably getting a shot of juice from some extraneous source. Walt Conner

Given your description, it is possible that a big chunk of head gasket blew causing at least a no compression feeling . I had one a short time ago that blew about an inch out and made only 25 on the gauge. More commonly, the head has let a valve seat slip out of place and it is holding a valve open. Do this. Remove the spark plug, take something similar to a small wood dowel and turn the engine screen on top by hand to see if the piston is travelling. If it is, off the rocker cover comes and if there is nothing visibly wrong there- off the head will need to come. As a hint, with both push rods removed, the ends of the valve stems will protrude from the head relatively equal. If not, something is holding a valve open such as a seat that has dislodged or a screw, piece of debris etc. Using that same logic, it is a good time to verify that both guides are protruding about the same distance from the head as well.