Hi all, I'm not mechanically inclined, so if you could give me some thoughts on what has happened I would appreciate it much. I have a Craftsman Pro Lawn Tractor, it has the B&S 24 hp ELS V-Twin with a 24" cut, that I just use here at home,(2 Acres) I've had it about 2 maybe 2.5 years and it is out of warranty. I was riding it from the garage to the yard (blades were not engaged yet) when a very loud pop happened and it died. After that, when I tried to restart it, the motor just turns but it will not start as if something in the engine broke..... I DO think this is MY fault (and I'm embarrassed to say this), but I think I was low on oil - could you give me a suggestion as to what may have broke, due to my ignorance, so I can at least have some idea of what to tell someone it may need when I try to find someone to give me an estimate to repair it? BTW, I live in a rural area and do not have any authorized B&S centers within approx. 80 miles of me (Sears store is about 58 mile away too). One last thing, I have always put new oil and filter, and air filter on it each year, and last year I put a new spark plug on it in addition to the other maintenance - I have tried to keep it running well, but this year I just made a MAJOR/stupid mistake that is gonna cost me......... Thanks for any suggestions guys (and ladies) :-)

Massey Ferguson Lawn & Garden is a brand offered by Simplicity Manufacturing, Inc. Since its beginning in 1922, Simplicity has been an industry leader committed to designing, manufacturing, and marketing premium lawn and garden equipment. In addition to Massey Ferguson Lawn & Garden, Simplicity sells products under the brand names Simplicity, AGCO Lawn & Garden, Snapper, Snapper Pro, Ferris, and Giant-Vac. Manufactured for both residential and commercial use, Simplicity products are sold worldwide by more than 9,000 dealers and distributors. Simplicity Manufacturing is part of the Briggs & Stratton Power Products Group, L.L.C I copied the above from Agco's website.

Thanks Walt! I am beginning my reassembly now. By the way, I did all of the cutting on the pulley with a Dremel tool. Actually a black and decker wizard with the wand attachment and a 1.5" as well as a 1" cut off wheel. It might have taken a little longer, but I was able to get closer to the sump without worry of cutting into it. I had to bend open the pulley in places to get the tool deep enough to cut through the thicker middle section of the pulley but that was eased by the cutting to the holes the guys at the machine shop drilled in order to use a wheel puller on it.

As it happens, although I am a regular reader of this board I found this posting because I was having exactly the same trouble with my 16hp Vanguard. I was out cutting an area of my property that only gets cut once a year, so it was pretty heavy and slow mowing. I noticed that the tractor was bogging down and starting to blow black smoke while it was under load, it also was running roughly at idle and seemed to be missing on one cylinder. I quickly brought the tractor in and turned the motor off. It was so quick and there was so much smoke I thought I had damaged the rings or the valves on the engine. As a previous poster had mentioned I tried running the engine with and without the air filter. As soon as I took the filter off the engine stopped smoking and ran smoothly. This is probably the cause of some fuel delivery problems I was having earlier this summer as well. The interesting thing to me is that this is a new filter, installed in June and is one of the genuine Briggs "Black" gasket filters. I will buy a new filter from a different source this week and hope it clears up the problem.